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THE SEPARATES 



OR 



Strict Congregationalists of 
New England 



BY 



Rev. S. LEROY BLAKE, d. d. 

Pastor of the First Church of Christ 
New London, Connecticut 



With an Introduction by 
Prof. W1LLISTON WALKER, D. D. 



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Copyright, 1902 
By S. Leroy Blake 



Introduction 

By Prof. Williston Walker, d. d. 

Among the more important of the consequences 
of that vast religions upheaval in eighteenth century- 
New England, of which Whitefield's preaching was 
the most striking episode, was the revolt against the 
conservatism, formalism and rigid ecclesiastical dis- 
cipline of the established churches of these colonies, 
to which the title, "Separatist Movement," has usual- 
ly been given. The "Great Awakening," as the re- 
vival in general has been called, well deserves its 
fame as the most wide-spread and intense spiritual 
quickening in New England history. No other 
epoch of New England story has witnessed so gen- 
erally diffused an interest in spiritual concerns or has 
beheld so expensive a manifestation of the visible 
working of the divine Spirit upon the hearts of men 
as the years 1740, 1741 and 1742, when the revival 
was ait its height. It stands in retrospect like a 
mountain peak in colonial religious history above the 
monotonous level characteristic of the eighteenth 
century. 

But the "Great Awakening" is not remarkable 
only for its accessions to the churches and its quick- 
ening of the life of the spirit. In some respects its 
methods and its characteristic manifestations were 



4 • The Separates 

unparalleled in New England history. It was distin- 
guished far beyond any revival in this region beside, 
by fervent appeals to the feelings resulting in emo- 
tional excitement sufficient oftentimes to produce 
striking physical effects, and by such a sense of the 
divine presence and of the reality of unseen things as 
led many who came under its power to claim visions 
and spiritual gifts not granted to Christians in more 
ordinary times. These more unusual and ex- 

travagant manifestations were opposed, indeed, by 
the vast majority of the ministry of New England; 
but they were wide-spread and impressive among 
the humbler and more ignorant subjects of the 
"Great Awakening." 

Born of the intenser manifestations of the revival 
and emphasizing thus its more emotional and transi- 
tory aspects, the Separatist movement had in itself 
from the first the seeds of ultimate dissolution. Its 
adherents laid weight on bodily effects as evidences 
of the working of the Spirit of God. They denied 
the necessity of an educated ministry. They be- 
lieved themselves so gifted with the "key of knowl- 
edge," as to be able to discern by spiritual initia- 
tion who were truly Christians and who were not. 
They regarded discipline as a prime duty. Holding 
such opinions, prevailingly recruited from the more 
ignorant and less well-to-do portion of the popu- 
lation, and persecuted by the heavy hand of the 
colonial government for many years, it is no won- 
der that the Separatists as a whole ended in dis- 
aster. 



Introduction 5 

Yet these traits were far from exhausting the 
characteristics of the Separatist movement, and had 
they been all, that movement would have lost much 
of the significance which properly belongs to it. 
The Separatists were in large degree a protest 
against the departure of eighteenth century Con- 
gregationalism from its earlier ideals. The lapse 
of a century since the planting of the New England 
churches had resulted in great modifications. The 
dying out of the fire of the original spiritual zeal 
in which the colonies were planted was followed 
by a decreasing intensity of religious experience 
and a diminishing emphasis in preaching on the 
possibility and necessity of a conscious "conversion," 
such as had prevailed in early New England. Since 
men had little of striking religious experience to 
tell, the custom of "relations" of God's dealings 
with the soul passed into comparative disuse as a 
condition of entrance into church-membership. 
New England preaching, till awakened by the re- 
vival, had been growing formal and increasingly 
essay-like for two generations. And, in Connec- 
ticut at least, a state-supported ecclesiastical organ- 
ization, approaching Presbyterian government in 
several of its features, had taken the place of the 
freedom of earlier Congregationalism. 

Most disastrous of all was the Half-Way Cove- 
nant system. Begun by earnest pastors in the sev- 
enteenth century in an honest desire to hold young 
people under the watch and discipline of the 



6 The Separates 

churches, it really lowered the spiritual tone of the 
churches as a whole. It established a half-way house 
between a neglect of Christian privileges and a full 
acknowledgment of the claims of the gospel. Those 
who had been bapltized in infancy by reason of their 
parents' Christian profession were now allowed and 
encouraged to bring their own children for bap- 
tism and a similar church-membership even if con- 
scious themselves of no regenerative change. Such 
imperfect members satisfied the conditions of their 
"half-way" status if they gave intellectual assent 
to the main doctrines of the Christian faith and 
agreed to submit themselves to church discipline. 
The chief evil of the system was (that it encouraged 
men and women to do something to which they and 
the church alike ascribed value; but something, nev- 
ertheless, far short of a full consecration to Christ 
and his service. Having "owned the covenant" and 
entered into "half-way" membership, they too easily 
satisfied themselves thalt they had done all possible 
for themselves and their children. 

Against all these serious modifications of earlier 
Congregationalism the Separatists protested. They 
were not the only ones in our churches who antag- 
onized these evils.. The more strenuous supporters 
of the "Great Awakening" who never left the fel- 
lowship of the established churches did so very 
generally. But the Separatists were determined and 
consistent opponents of these things, and in their 
attitude they are amply justified by later Congre- 



Introduction 7 

gational history. Whatever their errors and short- 
comings in other respects, — and the following nar- 
rative stows that these were fatally numerous, — the 
Separatists were right in their opposition to many 
serious spiritual declensions in the churches of their 
day. 

This movement, never told heretofore with the ful- 
ness thaJt it deserves, has found a painstaking and 
sympathetic historian in Dr. S. L. Blake, and 
students of eighteenth century New England re- 
ligious story will welcome his narrative of the rise, 
growth and decline of the Separatists. The epi- 
sode is one well deserving the labor and care which 
he has bestowed upon its presentation. 



A Foreword 

In "Some Aspects of the Religious Life of New 
England," Dr. George Leon Walker, speaking of 
the Separates of Connecticut, says, "The subject 
deserves a fuller investigation than it has ever yet 
received." He also speaks of it as "a chapter which 
still awaits its proper treatment at the hands of some 
painstaking and sympathetic historian." In pre- 
paring the second volume of the history of the first 
Church of Christ, New London, Connecticut, the 
writer found a considerable wealth of material con- 
cerning this unwritten chapter of ecclesiastical his- 
tory in New England. He also became aware that 
more was within reach, much of which had never 
seen the light. He was led to further investigation 
and found so much that he resolved to gather the 
material into a volume. Besides, on studying the 
subject, as it presented itself, the writer, while recog- 
nizing the many foolish extravagances of the "New 
Lights," as they were often called, yet found him- 
self so in sympathy with many of their contentions 
that he seemed to himself so far forth to fulfil Dr. 
Walker's condition of a "sympathetic historian." 

The story is a somewhat thrilling one. It throws 
a strange light upon religious liberty in Connecticut 
between 1742 and 1784. The materials were gath- 



io The Separates 

ered from many sources. The following are the 
principal authorities consulted: 

Diary of Joshua Hempstead, covering the period 
when the movement was in its strength. 

Records of the First Church of Christ, New Lon- 
don, 

Original Records of the Separate Church in 
Preston. 

Original Memorial of the same church petitioning 
the legislature for relief from taxation in support of 
the Established Church. 

History of the Preston Separate Church by A. A. 
Browning, Esq., of Norwich. 

History of the Newent (Lisbon) Separate 
Church, in manuscript. 

Colonial Records of Connecticut. 

Annals of Saint James, New London, by R. A. 
Hallam, d. d. 

History of New London, by Miss Caulkins. 

History of Norwich, by Miss Caulkins. 

History of Windham County, by Miss Ellen D. 
Larned. 

Gleanings from the History of Windham County, 
by the same author. 

History of the Enfield, Conn., Separate Church, 
by Rev. O. W. Means, ph. d., a most excellent 
monograph. 

History of Montville. 

History of the Suffolk Congregational Associa- 



A Foreword n 

Hon, Long Island, by Rev. William I. Chalmers of 
Riverhead, L. I. 

Contributions to Ecclesiastical History of Con- 
necticut. 

History of Connecticut, by Benjamin Trumbull, 

D. D. 

Early History of Christ Church Parish, Guilford, 
by Rev. William G. Andrews, d. d. 

Great Awakening, by Rev. Joseph Tracy. 

Congregationalists in America, by Rev. A. E. 
Dunning, d. d. 

History of Congregationalism, by Rev. George 
Punchard. 

History of Congregationalists in Massachusetts, 
by Rev. J. S. Clark, d. d. 

Baptists in Norwich, by Denison. 

History of Beneficent Church, Providence, R. L, 
by Rev. J. G. Vose, d. d. 

Some Aspects of the Religious Life of New Eng- 
land, by Rev. George Leon Walker, d. d. 

History of the Congregational Churches, by Prof. 
Williston Walker, d. d. 

One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
South Congregational Church, Middletown, Conn., 
by Rev. Frederick W. Green. 

Journal of Rev. Jacob Eliot, Goshen, Conn., in 
manuscript. 

The New Englander, 1853, PP- z 95 £ 

The Diary of Rev. Ezra Stiles, d. d., Vol. I. 



12 The Separates 

Backus' Church History. 

Joel S. Ives' Address at the 250th Anniversary of 
the church in Stratford. 

S. L. B. 



Contents 

Introduction 3 

A Foreword 9 

I 
Their Rise and Cause 17 

II 
Their Final Separation 40 

III 
Their Doctrines 65 

IV 
Their Characteristics and Extrava- 
gances 89 

V 
Their Persecutions 109 

VI 
Where They Were and What Be- 
came of Them 126 

VII 
Conclusion 199 



The Separates 



OR 



Strict Congregationalists 

OF 

New England 



THEIR RISE AND CAUSE 

As a fruit of the Great Awakening of 1740 a 
number of churches arose in southeastern Connec- 
ticut, to which they were mostly confined, which 
were seceders from the standing order, and were 
called Separates, and New Lights. They were 
Congregational in their principles and practices, 
their polity and belief. But they flatly refused to 
be governed by the Saybrook Platform, As this 
was made the established order in Connecticut, 
without redress after 1743, they put themselves into 
open and pronounced antagonism to the State. They 
stood on the original Cambridge Platform, and pre- 
ferred to be called, as they called themselves, "Strict 
Congregationalisms." As such they could secure no 
exemption, as did Baptists and Episcopalians, from 
taxation to support the standing order. November 
4, 1745, at the prolonged trial of its pastor, Rev. 
Philemon Robbins, for alleged irregularities in his 
ministerial conduct, the church in Branford stood 
by him and voted, "That we renounce the Saybrook 
platform, and cannot receive it as a rule of govern- 
ment and discipline in this church; that we declare 
this church to be a Congregational church; that we 
receive the scriptures of the Old and New Testament 
as the only perfect rule and platform of church gov- 

17 



1 8 The Separates 

eminent and discipline; that though we receive the 
scriptures as the only perfect rule, yet as we know of 
no human composure that comes nearer to the scrip- 
tures in matters of church government and discipline 
than the Cambridge platform, so we approve of that 
for substance, and take it for our platform, agree- 
ably to the word of God." Several other churches 
in Connecticut took similar action. The Bran-ford 
church does not seem to have become a Separate 
church, although other churches did which formally 
adopted the Cambridge platform. 

This religious movement seems to have begun at 
New London, in 1742 and 1743, where a separate 
society was organized March 6 of the latter year. 
As this movement grew out of the Great Awaken- 
ing, and the conditions preceding it, we naturally 
look to these to find its immediate causes, for the 
loose practices, from which this wide-spread spirit- 
ual quickening was a rebound, were the primary 
reason why this separation from the churches of 
the established order took place. 

To appreciate the full force and significance oi 
the great spiritual movement in 1740, it will be nec- 
essary to go back, and trace our way to it through 
the spiritual dearth which came upon the churches 
with ever deepening intensity during the last quar- 
ter of the seventeenth and the first half of the eight- 
eenth cenituries. The period from 1630 to 1660, the 
period during which the men and women who 
planted New England were on the scene, has been 



Their Rise and Cause 19 

called its golden age. Soon after the close of this 
period we begin to hear of religious declension. In 
1679 a synod called by the legislature of Massa- 
chusetts left on record an acknowledgment of a 
"great and visible decay of Godliness" in the church- 
es. There had sprung up neglect of divine worship, 
disregard of sacramental observances, pride, pro- 
fanity, Sabbath-breaking, and kindred vices un- 
known to the first generation of the inhabitants of 
New England, who founded her colonies, her 
churches, and composed their membership. They 
were "strict in doctrine, in discipline, and in prac- 
tice." A gentleman of eminent character, who had 
lived in New England seven years, during its gold- 
en age, said that he did not once hear an oath, or see 
a drunken man. But as those who planted the col- 
onies passed away, and a new generation came upon 
the stage, there was a sensible decline in godliness. 
The children did not inherit the virtues of the 
fathers. As generation succeeded generation there 
was a still greater decline. There was sound preach- 
ing, much fasting and prayer, on the part of some 
for the special influences of the Holy Spirit, yet there 
was a general decline in the power of godliness, a 
general ease and security in sin on the part of the 
great mass of the people. This spiritual condi- 
tion prevailed throughout the New England colo- 
nies. Men who had the interests of God's kingdom 
at heart were alarmed. 

There were revivals of greater or less power in 



20 The Separates 

a few places, but no general awakening. In North- 
ampton there were several seasons of deepened and 
quickened religious sensibility. The greater part of 
the young people in the town were reached, and ex- 
pressed concern for the salvation of their souls. In 
1 72 1 the town of Windham, in Connecticut, under 
the ministry of Rev. Samuel Whiting, was visited 
by a work of grace, which resulted in gathering 
eighty persons into the church. The whole town 
was moved by a supreme joy. Persons of all ages 
were reached, and came together to seek the Lord 
their God. The Firsit Church in New London 
shared, to some extent, in this work. But while 
some places were thus blessed, the larger part were 
not; iniquity abounded; religion decayed through- 
out the land. In many of the towns little change 
was wrought in spiritual life, or in the moral tone 
of society. These revivals were not of the sort that 
reaches and remedies these radical evils. In some 
cases, at least, there does not seem to have been that 
deep conviction of sin which drives men to God, and 
compels them to turn to him. They were of that 
kind which arouses the sensibilities, but does not 
change the will. Mr. Parsons, who was settled in 
Lyme in 1730, 'tells us that he urged his people much 
to good works and to attend upon the Lord's Sup- 
per. Many followed the pastor's suggestion, under 
the impression that saving grace was in no sense 
necessary to attendance upon that ordinance. Hence, 
no relation of experience and no experience of re- 



Their Rise and Cause 21 

newing grace were required of those who came into 
the church. Consequently numbers were received 
who, in the searching light of the Great Awaken- 
ing, were aroused to the fact that they were still in 
their sins, and that their eternal hope was 
resting on sand. The pastor was obliged to tell 
fthem that he feared that few who had joined the 
church hitherto under his ministry had been really 
converted. Matters kept going from bad to worse 
in the churches until 1740, when the Great Awak- 
ening arrested the tide and profoundly stirred the 
churches; men were convicted of sin and awoke to 
the need of something deeper and more radical than 
good works;— -that radical change called the new 
birth. 

The immediate cause of this powerful movement 
was the preaching of two sermons by Jonathan Ed- 
wards, at Northampton in Massachusetts, upon 
Justification by Faith. He took strong and decided 
grounds against the doctrine of justification by 
works, which had been preached, and had grown 
and spread among the churches in the form of the 
Half-Way Covenant, and the doctrine that the 
Lord's Supper is a converting and saving ordinance 
— a doctrine strenuously advocated by Solomon 
Stoddard, the predecessor and maternal grand- 
father of Edwards. This opinion gained distin- 
guished advocates. Dr. Charles Chauncey, of Bos- 
ton, said, "The divinely appointed way, in which 
persons become members of the visible Church of 



22 The Separates 

Christ, is utterly inconsistent with the supposition, 
that, in order to their being so, they must be sub- 
jects of saving faith, or judged to be so." This was 
the liberalism of the eighteenth century, which gave 
birth to the more advanced free thinking of the nine- 
teenth century. Its presence in the churches, and its 
wide acceptance by them between 1660 and 1740, 
explain why the revivals of those years produced 
so little radical change, and had so little power to 
arrest the moral and religious decay. They also 
help to explain why the Great Aw T akening itself met 
with bitter opposition from some whom we should 
expect to be its advocates, and why, in some cases, 
so disastrous results followed, as in the Separate 
movement. 

Edwards' views of divine truth came into the pre- 
vailing religious conditions, like a stream from a 
divine fountain. All previous efforts to secure a 
revival and to promote spiritual growth, bad laid 
special and almost exclusive emphasis upon outward 
reform, without reference to a change of heart, till 
the notion came to prevail that, by diligent atten- 
tion to good works, men could, in an important 
sense, merit and win the favor of God, without for- 
mal and definite submission of the will to him. 
When Jonathan Edwards appeared upon the scene 
and, in the year 1734, boldly proclaimed the doc- 
trine of justification by faith, and preached the abso- 
lute necessity of a radical change of heart, as the 
only way of securing salvation, the religious world 



Their Rise and Cause 23 

was startled. The state of spiritual declension had 
become alarming. Edwards' preaching, severe as 
it seems to us of a later generation, was like re- 
freshing showers coming after a long drought, to 
refresh and gladden the thirsty earth. 

To appreciate fully the low spiritual condition of 
the churches, at the time when the Great Awaken- 
ing began, it will be instructive to trace the steps 
leading to this condition. 

First of all is to be named the practice of the 
Half- Way Covenant, by which the churches, and in 
some cases the pulpits, became filled with people who 
laid no claim to a change of heart. This was bdth 
a fruit, and a cause, of the conditions upon which 
the revival of 1740 broke, as the light breaks in upon 
the darkness. It was a fruit, because the churches 
of New England, founded upon the doctrine stated 
by Hooker, that none but those who had experience 
of renewing and regenerating grace were suitable to 
become members of Christ's visible body, did not 
depart from it until they had lost the deep spiritual 
life of their founders. It was a cause, for after 
the churches had adopted this looser practice their 
spiritual decay became more rapid. The period of 
its widest adoption was that in which the lowest 
type of piety prevailed in the churches. Instead of 
being, as it was originally intended, a means of re- 
taining under watch and discipline of the church 
those who were born of godly parents, but were slip- 
ping away, it became the method of entrance into 



24 The Separates 

covenant relations with the church for those who 
could advance no claim of birthright even, much 
less of personal experience of renewing grace. In 
the seasons of religious interest previous to the 
deeper, more radical work of the Great Awakening, 
large numbers of persons who had a quickened sense 
of obligation were admitted to Half- Way Covenant 
membership. Later on all restrictions were, in many 
cases, removed, and such persons were admitted to 
the privileges of full fellowship. Dr. George Leon 
Walker says, "But however conscientiously devised, 
this scheme wrought inevitable mischief to the 
spiritual life of the period" of the Puritan decline. 
It was a sort of easy resting-place between utter 
neglect of religion, and a full surrender to its claims. 
So the descendants of the people, who, several gen- 
erations before, had come out from home, and 
church relationship, as a protest against formalism, 
which destroyed the spiritual life and power of the 
churches, dropped into the very same error. So 
strongly intrenched in the practice of the churches 
did the Half- Way Covenant become that, even under 
the powerful influences of the Great Awakening, it 
continued to hold open their doors to those to whom 
Hooker would have refused admission. And it con- 
tinued in a measure to determine their policy, with 
reference to 'the admission of members, until the 
nineteenth century. It was against this practice of 
filling the churches with unconverted men and 
women, and of installing men as pastors who had no 



Their Rise and Cause 25 

experience of renewing grace, that the Separate 
movement was a protest. Curiously enough, we 
have here the spectacle of a separation from the de- 
scendants and churches of the Separatists and Puri- 
tans of New England, for the same reasons which 
caused those Separatists who came to Plymouth, 
and those Puritans who, ten years later, came to 
Salem and Boston with Endicott and Winthrop, 
to separate from the Church of England. 

Another cause of the religious decline was the 
state of war in which the colonies were almost 
without cessation for more than fifty years. The 
French war broke out in 1689. The next year the 
expedition against Quebec was undertaken, for 
which the colonies furnished troops. Queen Anne's 
war broke out in 1703, and with it the horrors of 
Indian incursions and their awful atrocities. In 
1 70 1 was the abortive expedition against Canada by 
sea and land. In 1735 and later were other disturb- 
ances of a similar character. Either the hostilities 
of the Indians, or the assaults of the French kept 
the colonies in a state of constant apprehension, 
which was particularly annoying to Connecticut. 
Although the peace of Utrecht, in 171 3, put an end, 
for the time, to active hostilities between the French 
and English, yet the French continued to incite 
the Indians, who pillaged the English settlements, 
and killed, or carried away captive many of the 
settlers. The history of the colonies, from 1700, 
and earlier, until the close of the Revolution, reads 



26 The Separates 

like the story of a running fight, with only here 
and there an important break in the narrative. 

War, in whatever form, is never helpful in mat- 
ters of religious growth. It awakens alarm. It 
arouses the worst passions of men. It disturbs so- 
ciety and engrosses men's thought with matters 
which do not make for spiritual life. In this dis- 
turbed state, of so long standing, religious life in 
New England sank to a low ebb. The churches 
became an easy prey to those materialistic views 
and practices which robbed them of their spirit- 
ual power. 

Civil strife was yet another cause of that de- 
cline, of which a contemporary said, as early as 
1 70 1, "It is too observable, that the Power of God- 
liness is exceedingly Decaying and Expiring in the 
Country." The attempts of Sir Edmund Andros 
to bring all New England under his control in 
1686; the attempted exercise of authority in Con- 
necticut in 1687, in connection with which was the 
hiding of the charter in the Charter Oak ; the quar- 
rel of Thomas Dudley with Massachusetts from 
1702 to 1 71 5; the constant suspense in which the 
people of Connecticut were kept by the controversies 
with the neighboring colonies, over the boundary 
lines, some of which were not settled till nearly 
the middle of the eighteenth century, were not con- 
ducive to the development of deep religious life. 
Massachusetts lost her charter in 1684. Proceedings 
looking to similar action against Connecticut were 



Their Rise and Cause 27 

instituted in 1685. Political events of so serious 
moment, which imperatively commanded men's at- 
tention, and which so vitally concerned their ma- 
terial interests were not favorable to that attention 
to spiritual things, which is essential to high re- 
ligious states. 

Yet another source of irritation was the in- 
troduction into New England of the Established 
Church of Old England — the very organization 
from which the Separatists of Plymouth and the 
Puritans of Massachusetts had come out. If the 
efforts of "The Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel," had been confined to its original purpose 
— -to carry the gospel to the Indians of North 
America — or if it had been content simply to plant 
churches where there were members of its own 
communion, the case would have been different, and 
created less disturbance. But the society enlarged 
its scope so that it became "A Society for Aiding 
the Church of England in America," and it soon 
proceeded to plant its churches where the ground 
was abundantly occupied, and supplied with the 
ministrations of the gospel, though not after the 
Episcopal order. 

The first fruits of the efforts of the Propagation 
Society in Connecticut was the founding of a mis- 
sion in Stratford in 1706. Rev. Dr. Andrews of 
Guilford says that this mission "was undertaken 
chiefly for the benefit of recent emigrants at Strat- 
ford, who were already Episcopalians." For twenty 



28 The Separates 

years this was the only mission of the Propaga- 
tion Society in Connecticut. Samuel Johnson said, 
"I never once tried to proselyte dissenters, nor do 
I believe any of the other ministers did." However, 
George Keith, a converted Quaker, the first mis- 
sionary of the Propagation Society to come to 
America, suggested measures which he believed 
"would effectually contribute to the proselyting of 
the main body of the dissenting people to their An- 
cient mother, the Church of England." And yet, 
upon his representation, the Society came to re- 
gard other parts of America as more in need of 
their aid than the two Congregational colonies, which 
were everywhere supplied with ministers and meet- 
ing houses; so that as late as 1728 the Society had 
but two missionaries in Connecticut, and three in 
Massachusetts. But after this the Propagation 
Society pushed its work with full vigor in the New 
England colonies. 

A startling result of the labors of the Propagation 
Society was the conversion to Episcopacy, in 1722, 
of Dr. Cutler, the rector of Yale College, and five 
neighboring Congregational clergymen. This de- 
fection caused deep and wide alarm. The belief 
gained ground that there was a conspiracy among 
some of the prominent clergymen to go over to 
the Church of England, and take the people of 
Connecticut with them. The fear was all the greater 
because these efforts seemed to be backed up by gov- 
ernmental and ecclesiastical authority from abroad. 



Their Rise and Cause 29 

It also was justified by the fact that several promi- 
nent divines had already taken this step, and many 
more seemed about to do so. The secession of Sea- 
bury and Punderson of North Groton, a few years 
later, did not allay the fear. After Punderson had 
been to England to receive orders, he returned to 
North Groton, and established a Church-of-England 
parish by the side of the Congregational church 
of which he had been the pastor. His effort drew 
so largely from the old church, that, at one time, 
it seemed as if it would be obliged to suspend. 
He claimed to have several hundred com- 
municants on his roll. It looked dubious for a 
time for the old Puritan church. It is not surpris- 
ing that the hearts of the Congregationalists of 
North Groton sank within them. However, the old 
Puritan church remains, while Punderson's move- 
ment left nothing behind it. 

The action of Thomas Dudley, and an edict of 
Queen Anne in 171 3, served to give impetus to the 
work of the Propagation Society in Massachusetts, 
which at once undertook to plant its churches in 
several of the larger towns outside of Boston. Con- 
necticut seems to have been favorable ground for its 
operations, for the Society found it difficult to 
meet the demands upon it. There was a growing 
eagerness on the part of young men to take orders 
in the English Church. This did not tend to allay 
apprehension. Besides, the usage of the English 
Church with respect to the sacraments of baptism 



30 The Separates 

and the Lord's Supper, was directly contrary to orig- 
inal Congregationalism, as expounded and prac- 
ticed by Hooker, Davenport, and others of the 
fathers of New England. Their view of church 
order, as we have seen, debarred from the sacra- 
ments a large body of people of exemplary lives 
whom the Anglican Church considered as eligible 
to them. This, says Dr. Andrews of Christ Church, 
Guilford, "abundantly justified the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in planting missions in 
this Christian commonwealth." He adds, "that the 
Church of England steadily increased in this com- 
monwealth was due far less to 'aggressive work' on 
the part of the Anglican clergy than to the fact that 
the Anglican Church supplied what Puritanism had 
taught men to value as their lives, and New Eng- 
land Congregationalism, with an honorable, though 
misguided zeal for the holiness of God's house, had 
placed almost out of their reach." Dr. Andrews 
speaks as a churchman who believes that men may 
enter the kingdom of God by natural birth and nur- 
ture. The New England Congregationalist was a 
churchman who believed originally that a man must 
be born again, from above, to enter the kingdom of 
God. He therefore insisted that all who sought ad- 
mission to the Church and its sacraments should have 
and relate a personal experience of renewing grace. 
As we have seen, the looser practice of the Half- Way 
Covenant had already obtained a foothold in some 
of the leading churches, when Episcopacy appeared 



Their Rise and Cause 31 

on the scene. But the great body of the New Eng- 
land Congregational churches resisted it. Stod- 
dard's theory that the Lord's Supper was a saving 
ordinance, and that unregenerate men of reputable 
lives ought to be admitted to it, aroused a storm 
of opposition. Strong men were on both sides. 
The time was favorable for Episcopacy. It offered 
to men what the great body of the Congregational 
Churches denied them. The controversy continued 
until gradually these churches, wearied by the con- 
flict, yielded the ground, as an act of self-defence, 
and as a measure of peace. 

The feeling was deep. Discussions about church 
order and discipline were heated. The defection of 
leading men, like Dr. Cutler of Yale, added fuel to 
the fire. The Propagation Society instructed its 
clergy to reclaim dissenters "with a spirit of meek- 
ness and gentleness." But some of the dissenters 
refused to be reclaimed. And therefore these dis- 
putes, and the defection of prominent men, distract- 
ed the minds of the people, diverted them from their 
obligations as professed disciples of our Lord, and 
tended to lower their spiritual tone. 

As some believed, all these controversies and dis- 
turbances, and the tendency to less rigorous disci- 
pline in the churches, which was gaining ground, 
were introducing "a grievous decay of piety" into 
New England. Samuel Mather wrote in 1706, "It 
is a time of much degeneracy." In 1714, Samuel 
Whitman of Farmington said, in his election ser- 



32 The Separates 

mon, " 'Tis too Evident to be denied, that Religion 
is on the Wane among us. 'Tis languishing in all 
Parts of the Land." Dr. Increase Mather, who died 
in 1723, wrote, "There is a grievous decay of piety 
in the land and a leaving of the first love, and the 
beauties of holiness are not to be seen as they once 
were. The very interest of New England seems 
to be changed from a religious to a worldly one." 
In 1730 William Russel of Middletown said in a 
sermon, preached before the legislature, "The Coun- 
try improveth in Knowledge and Skill in Worldly 
business, but in Religious Knowledge, doth it not 
manifestly decay?" In 1725 efforts were made to 
have the legislatures of the colonies call a synod to 
consider "What are the miscarriages whereof we 
have reason to think the judgments of Heaven 
upon us call us to be more generally sensible, and 
what may be the most evangelical and effective ex- 
pedients to put a stop unto those or like miscar- 
riages." This effort was opposed by the Episcopal 
clergymen of Boston, with Dr. Cutler in the lead, 
and the synod was never held. This was a final 
blow to all hopes of remedying spiritual evils by 
the action of civil authorities. A similar effort had 
been made in Connecticut in 17 14. The legislature 
recommended that a strict enquiry into the state of 
religion be made in every parish, to find out, if pos- 
sible, "What are the sins and evils that provoke the 
just majesty of Heaven to walk contrary to us in 
the ways of His providence; that thereby all pos- 



Their Rise and Cause 33 

sible means may be used for our healing and recov- 
ery from our degeneracy." The picture is a dark 
one. But there is too much reason to believe that 
it is not overdrawn. Old church records preserve 
melancholy evidence that too much cannot be said 
of the degeneracy of those times. That the heated 
religious controversy had not a little to do with 
bringing such a state to pass cannot be doubted. 
There was not then the breadth of mind to toleralte 
so radical departures from the prevailing order, as 
the introduction of other denominations, such as the 
Baptists, Quakers, Methodists and Episcopalians. 
It should be said, however, that the coming of other 
denominations into New England rendered this ser- 
vice to the Congregational churches; it put an end 
to efforts to correct spiritual abuses and revive spirit- 
ual life by an appeal to the legislature. 

Another reason for the declining spiritual s'tate 
of the churches, especially in Connecticut previous 
to the Great Awakening, was the relation in which 
they stood itb the legislature, which was a sort of 
standing ecclesiastical body having in charge their 
spiritual as well as material interests. For ex- 
ample, the legislature of Connecticut, called the Say- 
brook Synod, which drew up the famous Platform, 
called the convention at Guilford, whose action was 
framed into the stringent legislation of 1742 and 
1743; gave permission to bodies of people to be 
constituted into churches; often took the lead in 
settling church troubles, and performed similar ec- 



34 The Separates 

clesiastical functions which are foreign to legis- 
lative bodies to-day. Besides, after 1743, the 
churches under the Saybrook Platform were a state 
establishment as rigorous, exacting and unbending, 
as that against which the Separatists of Scrooby 
protested. 

This relation of the churches to the legislatures of 
the colonies is also seen in certain political functions 
to which church membership was considered essen- 
tial. In Massachusetts, in the early days of the 
colony, a man could neither vote nor hold office un- 
less he were a church member. Similar restrictions 
were placed upon the right of franchise in the New 
Haven colony previous to its union with the Con- 
necticut colony in 1665; thalt is, certain civil privi- 
leges were connected with religious observances. 
This was an inheritance from the State churches of 
Europe. For example, admission to the Lord's 
table carried with it certain civil rights which were 
infringed by exclusion from it. In some cases men 
qualified for civil office by partaking of this sacra- 
ment. Dr. Ezra Stiles, in his diary, tells 
of one Mr. Moulton of Newport, who was not 
a church member, but who "to qualify for an office 
had received the sacrament at an Episcopal church" 
in Boston. Therefore, to exclude one from the 
Lord's table was, in some cases, regarded as a penal 
offence, for which the civil government inflicted 
punishment on the church official who refused the 
sacrament. This, in a measure, made the Church, 



Their Rise and Cause 35 

which is the body of Christ, a part of the civil gov- 
ernment, and was ndt helpful to its spiritual life. 

New England Congregationalism, at its birth, as 
we have seen, was a vigorous protest against such 
secularizing of the Church. The Cambridge Plat- 
form of 1648 was strong on this point. The sev- 
enteenth chapter of that document affirms that "as 
it is unlawfull for church officers to meddle with the 
sword of the Magistrate, so it is unlawfull for the 
Magistrate to meddle with the proper work of the 
church. " Then when the Separates, ninety years 
after the Cambridge Platform, protested against the 
interference of the civil authorities with the affairs 
and discipline of the Church, they had behind them 
the opinion and practice of the early New England 
Congregationalists, especially in Massachusetts. 
There was more of interference in ecclesiastical mat- 
ters in Connecticut than in the Bay Colony, 
throughout the eighteenth century. Consequently 
the Separate movement was stronger and more pro- 
nounced in the former, under the jurisdiction of the 
Saybrook Platform, which was framed to express an 
authoritative control and supervision in the disci- 
pline of the church, which are repugnant to the spirit 
of Congregationalism. Taking the view of church 
order and discipline that they did, the Separates 
pursued the only course open before them. As 
time went on changes took place. Legislative su- 
pervision in ecclesiastical matters assumed less and 
less pronounced forms, and slowly died out; so 



36 The Separates 

Ith&t before the Revolution this reason for the Sepa- 
ate movement had practically ceased. The religious 
limitations put upon civil rights and franchise came 
to be things of a remote past. Men were eligible 
to office irrespective of their church relations. 

But with these changes came others also of a 
more spiritual nature, as we have seen. The bars 
which led into the church were let down, and oftlen 
little or no restriction was put upon entering into its 
fellowship. The Boston Synod of 1662 had de- 
cided that persons baptized in infancy, "understand- 
ing the doctrine of faith, and publicly professing 
their assent thereto; not scandalous in life, and sol- 
emnly covenanting before the church, wherein they 
give themselves and their children to the Lord, and 
subject themselves to the government of Christ in 
the church/' might have their children baptized, even 
though they themselves were avowedly unregener- 
ate. This practice in many churches soon grew in- 
to the admission of such unregenerate persons to the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This was letting 
down the last bar, and added its share to the spirit- 
ual degeneracy, which, we have seen, came upon 
the churches before the great Revival, and in noit a 
few cases continued after it. That is, some of the 
churches, which the Fathers of New England 
planted as a protest against such loose practices, 
came to occupy the very ground against which they 
had been planted as a protest. As early as 1657 it 
had been maintained, in Connecticut, that "parishes 



Their Rise and Cause 37 

in England, consenting to and continuing meetings 
to worship God were true churches; and that mem- 
bers of those parishes, coming into New England, 
had a right to all church privileges though they made 
no profession of faith and holiness upon their 
hearts."* From that date on this view persistently 
pushed its way for fifty years, knocking at the door 
of the churches for admission, till the doors were 
flung wide open. Tracy says, "The desire to enjoy 
the credit and advantages of church-membership, 
aided by Mr. Stoddard's influence, carried the day 
at Northampton, and the practice soon spread ex- 
tensively in other parts of New England." Add 
to this state of things a state establishment, such as 
existed in Connecticut, under the Saybrook Plat- 
form, and we have the spiritual and ecclesiastical 
conditions which the Separatists at Scrooby and 
Gainsborough found confronting them in the first 
decade of the seventeenth century. It would be 
strange if in the eighteenth century, as in the seven- 
teenth, there were found none to protest against the 
same evils, and come out from them. 

The tendency of the conditions which we have 
considered, was to destroy all spiritual life. Men 
came to regard conversion as not essential, and join- 
ing the church as a saving act. They believed thalt 
they were to be saved by their own good works, rath- 
er than through faith in the merits of a crucified Re- 
deemer. Preparation for the kingdom of God, with 

♦Trumbull's Hist., Conn., Vol. I, p. 251. 



38 The Separates 

most churches, was a matter of correct external con- 
duct, rather than of believing on the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The difference between the Church and the 
I world rapidly disappeared. Until Edwards came 
upon the scene and preached his famous sermons on 
justification by faith, the trend was downward, in 
spite of every effort to arreslt it. The degeneracy, 
which had come upon the churches before the Great 
Awakening, kept on after it. Governor Law, in 
1743, called upon the people of Connecticut to con- 
fess their sins, which, he said, were "the great neg- 
lect and contempt of the gospel and the ministry 
thereof, and the prevailing of a spirit of disorder 
. . . and all other vices which prevail among 
us." This was not the only voice raised in lamen- 
tation over the spiritual conditions following the 
Great Awakening. When it is remembered that 
Governor Law's words were spoken concerning the 
prevalence of sins subsequent to the Revival, we 
shall see how deep-seated were the evils which had 
crept into the churches before it, and how strong 
was their hold upon them. Prof. Walker says, 
"The half century following the Great Awakening 
was a period of spiritual deadness." It was 

against the Church as a state organization, and 
against the prevailing loose methods of church or- 
der and discipline, that the Separates protested. 
Many of them were fruits of the Revival. Others 
were professed disciples, who had received new im- 
pulses and quickening. Neither class could consent 



Their Rise and Cause 39 

to relapse into the cold formalism which seemed to 
them to destroy the life of the churches. The only 
way open to them was the way out, and they took it. 



II 

THEIR FINAL SEPARATION 

We should naturally expect so wide and deep a 
religious movement as the Great Awakening, to af- 
fect favorably the spiritual condition of the churches, 
and that they would all be deeply engaged in it. 
But the contrary was too largely true. Among the 
Episcopalians, Dr. Cutler, formerly rector of Yale 
College, said, "It would be an endless attempt to de- 
scribe the scene of confusion and disturbance oc- 
casioned by him [Whitefield] ; the divisions of 
families, neighborhoods and towns, the contrariety 
of husbands and wives, the undutifulness of chil- 
dren and servants, the quarrels among teachers, the 
disorders of the night, the intermission of labor and 
business and husbandry, and gathering the harvest," 
and much more of the same sort. Dr. Cutler in 
the same paper describes the scenes attendant upon 
the awakening as "laughing, yelping, sprawling, 
fainting." Of Gilbert Tennent he had similar 

things to say, calling him "a monster, impudent, 
noisy." He called the preaching of this evangelist, 
"beastly brayings." Dr. Charles Chauncey, pastor 
of the First Church in Boston, led those in the Con- 
gregational churches of Massachusetts who opposed 
the revival. He published a volume entitled, 
"Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in 

40 



Their Final Separation 41 

New England," in which he undertook faithfully to 
point out "the things of a bad and dangerous ten- 
dency in the late and present religious appearance 
in the land." As early as 1741 a fierce controversy 
broke out between the "New Lights" and the "Old." 
Ecclesiastical and legal methods were taken in Con- 
necticut to repress the revival methods which were 
then in use. But all this opposition tended rather 
to fan the flames. August 11, 1741, the Hartford 
Association voted that no weight was to be "laid 
upon those screechings, cryings-out, faintings and 
convulsions which sometimes attend ye terrifying 
Language of some preachers and others, as evidences 
of, or necessary, to a genuine Conviction of Sin, 
humiliation, and preparation for Christ." Similar 
action was taken by other associations, and thus the 
challenge was thrown down, and the battle was soon 
on in all its fury. Of course there were strong 
men who entered into the work heaiitily. Doubt- 
less there was some occasion for criticism. The 
promoters of the Great Awakening were often in- 
discreet, sometimes censorious in their judgment of 
others who did not reach their standard. White- 
field was a man of intense emotions. He awakened 
similar feelings in others. Because of his alleged 
excesses the faculties of Harvard and Yale issued 
testimonies against him. The opposition spread 
in Connecticut. Backus says, "A great majority 
of the ministers and rulers through the land dis- 
liked this work, and exerted all their powers against 
it." 



42 The Separates 

November 24, 1741, a general consociation of 
the churches of the colony of Connecticut was con- 
vened at the suggestion of the legislature, and at its 
expense, at Guilford. This body consisted of 
"three ministers and three delegates from each as- 
sociation." Professor Williston Walker says, "This 
body, of which the colony bore the expenses, met 
at Guilford, November 24, 1741 ; and enjoys the dis- 
tinction of being the last Congregational Synod rep- 
resentative of the churches of a commonwealth called 
under the auspices of the State." It was con- 
vened to consider the practice, which was spreading, 
much to the alarm of the government and the regu- 
lar churches, of itinerating, or "going abroad and 
preaching and administering the seals in another 
parish without consent of the minister of the parish." 
It was itinerating of this sort, which, as we shall 
soon see, got Rev. Philemon Robbins of Branfofd 
into trouble. To this convention, assembled at 
Guilford in 1741, Rev. Mr. Whittlesey of Walling- 
ford proposed the question whether such itinerating 
were disorderly. It promptly voted in the affirma- 
tive. At the next session of the legislature, in May, 
1742, this vote of (the Guilford convention was 
framed into the following "Act for regulating 
abuses and correcting disorders in ecclesiastical af- 
fairs," which made it a penal offence for one min- 
ister of the Congregational order, or any layman, 
or any foreigner, to go into the parish of any clergy- 
man and preach without his invitation. The act 
provided : — 



Their Final Separation 43 

That if any ordained minister, or any other per- 
son licensed as aforesaid, to preach, shall enter into 
any parish not immediately under his charge, and 
shall there preach or exhort the people, he shall be 
denied and secluded the benefit of any law of this 
colony, made for the support and encouragement of 
the gospel ministry, except such ordained minister, 
or licensed person shall be expressly invited and de- 
sired to enter into such parish, and there to preach 
and exhort the people, by the settled minister, and 
the major part of the church and society within such 
parish; 

That if any association of ministers shall under- 
take to examine or license any candidate for the 
gospel ministry, or assume to themselves the decision 
of any controversy, or as an association to counsel 
and advise in any affair that by the platform, or 
agreement above mentioned, made at Saybrook, 
aforesaid, is properly within the province and juris- 
diction of any dfcher association, then and in such 
case every member that shall be present in such as- 
sociation so licensing, deciding or counseling, shall 
be each and every one of them, denied and secluded 
the benefit of any law in this colony, for the support 
and encouragement of the gospel ministry; 

That if any minister, or ministers, contrary to 
the true intent and meaning of this act, shall pre- 
sume to preach in any parish, not under his im- 
mediate care and charge, the minister of the parish 
where he shall so offend, or the civil authority, or 
any of the committee of said parish, shall give in- 
formation thereof, in writing, under their hands, to 
the clerk of the parish or society where such offend- 
ing minister doth belong, which clerk shall receive 
such information, and lodge and keep the same on 



44 The Separates 

file, in his office, and no assistant or justice of the 
peace, in this colony, shall sign any warrant for the 
collecting any minister's rate, without first receiv- 
ing a certificate from the clerk of the society, or par- 
ish, where such rate is to be collected, that no such 
information as is above mentioned, hath been re- 
ceived by him, or lodged in his office; 

That if any person whatsoever, that is not a set- 
tled and ordained minister, shall go into any parish, 
without the express desire and invitation of the set- 
tled minister of such parish, if any there be, and the 
major part of the church, or if there be no such set- 
tled minister, without the express desire of the 
church or congregation within such parish, and pub- 
licly preach and exhort the people, shall, for every 
such offence, upon complaint made thereof to any as- 
sistant or justice of the peace, be bound to his peace- 
able and good behavior, until the next county court 
in that county where the offence shall be committed, 
by said assistant or justice of the peace, in the penal 
sum of one hundred pounds lawful money, that he 
or they will not again offend in the like kind; and 
said county court may, if they see meet, further bind 
the said person or persons, offending as aforesaid, 
to Ifcheir peaceable behaviour, during the pleasure of 
the said court; 

That if any foreigner or stranger, that is not an 
inhabitant of this colony, including as well such per- 
sons as have no ecclesiastical character, or license to 
preach, as such as have received ordination or li- 
cense to preach, by any association or presbytery, 
shall presume to preach, teach, or publicly exhort, 
in any town or society within this colony, without 
the desire and license of the settled minister, and the 
major part of the church of such town or society, or 



Their Final Separation 45 

at the call and desire of the church and inhabitants 
of such town or society, provided that it so happen 
that there is no settled minister there, that every 
such preacher, teacher, or exhorter, shall be sent, as 
a vagrant person, by warrant from any one assist- 
ant or justice of the peace from constable to con- 
stable, out of the bounds of the colony. 

This extraordinary legislation had its origin, in 
part, at least, in the New Haven Consociation, as ap- 
pears from instructions given to their delegates, 
whom they sent to the Guilford council. The sug- 
gestions to the consociation came from Rev. Samuel 
Whittlesey of Wallingford, who had a grievance, 
and a point to gain. Further, the association of 
New r Haven, which met at Wallingford, September 
28, 1742, voted its unanimous thanks to be communi- 
cated to the legislature to be convened at New 
Haven, October 14, 1742, for having passed the act 
just quoted, in May of the same year. The vote 
reads as follows : — 

To the Hon. General Assembly, etc., convened at 
New Haven, October 14, 1742. — May it please this 
honorable assembly to permit us, the Association of 
the county of New Haven, regularly convened in the 
first society of Wallingford, September 28, 1742, to 
lay before you our grateful sense of the goodness of 
the General Assembly in May last, in so caring for 
our religious interests, and ecclesiastical constitu- 
tion; and our just apprehensions of their wisdom, 
in making the statute, entitled, An act for regulating 
abuses, and correcting disorders, in ecclesiastical af- 
fairs; and pray that it may be continued in force. 



46 The Separates 

All this points to the New Haven Association, 
and to the Rev. Samuel Whittlesey as fthe origin of 
the remarkable act just quoted. 

This act held against exhorters, lay preachers, 
evangelists, and all who separated themselves from 
the established order, and practically abolished re- 
ligious liberty in Connecticut. It all sounds very 
strange to modern ears. It did not leave a loop- 
hole. It put a strong fortress around the estab- 
lished order. But one act more needed to be taken 
to destroy all religious liberty in the colony. And 
that was taken in May, 1743. Trumbull well says, 
"The law was an outrage to every principle of jus- 
tice, and to the most inherent and valuable rights of 
the subject. It was a palpable contradiction, and 
gross violation of the Connecticut bill of rights. " 
Baptists and Episcopalians were accorded privileges 
which were denied to Congregationalists, who dis- 
sented from the established order of the Saybrook 
Platform, and were constituted under the Cambridge 
Platform into separate churches. Trumbull says, 
"Even in Connecticut, the Episcopalians were al- 
lowed to preach and colledt hearers, and erect 
churches, in any of the ecclesiastical societies, in op- 
position to the established ministers and churches. 
The Baptists were allowed to do the same. The 
law was therefore partial, inconsistent, and highly 
persecuting." As we have seen, the law of 1742 was 
an enactmenlt of the votes passed at Guilford the pre- 
vious November. It was therefore, says Trumbull, 



Their Final Separation 47 

an expression of the strong "opposition of heart 
which there was in the Arminians and old lights, to 
the work of God, and to the zealous and faithful 
promoters of it." Those who, for doctrinal or 
other reasons, separated themselves to form Separate 
churches were made to feel the grip of the law. In 
May, 1708, a statute of religious toleration had 
been passed by the legislature, which was re- 
affirmed by that body in October of the same year, 
when the Saybrook Platform of September was 
given legal authority. By this statute, those whose 
sober consciences led them to dissent from that 
Platform, could do so without being held to an- 
swer therefor. In May, 1743, this act of May, 
1708, was repealed. The legislature coupled this 
repeal with a distinct promise to those who were not 
Congregationalisms ; but those who, while preferring 
the Congregational faith and polity, wished to with- 
draw from the established system, of which the Say- 
brook Platform was the basis, and organize under 
the more Congregational Cambridge Platform, were 
now forbidden all right to do so. Thenceforward 
the Saybrook Platform was made legally binding 
upon all Congregationalists at least. Connecticut 
was now under as rigorous an ecclesiastical establish- 
ment as that from which the Fathers had fled in 
England. This continued until the act of 1743 was 
repealed in 1784, and liberty of conscience was 
granted to Christians of every name. 

A few cases of the rigor with which the law was 



48 The Separates 

enforced will suffice to show, on the one hand, how 
bitter was the opposition which the Great Revival 
awakened in the established churches, and on the 
other hand how sorely those were made to suffer 
who, for conscience' sake, withdrew from these 
churches. The church in Salisbury was organized 
in 1744, upon the Cambridge Platform, in defiance 
of the vote of the legislature. Rev. Mr. Leaven- 
worth of Waterbury, Rev. Mr. Humphrey of Derby, 
and Rev. Mr. Todd of Northbury, were among those 
who assisted at Mr. Jonathan Lee's ordination, as 
the first pastor of that church. For this offence 
these three men were suspended by the association 
to which they belonged. Mr. Benjamin Pomeroy 
of Hebron was brought before the Assembly because 
he said that the late laws of the colony were calcu- 
lated to encourage persecution, and to lead men to 
break their covenants, while the law to prevent min- 
isters from going into other towns to preach was 
without reason, and contrary to the Word of God. 
He was tried, and the Assembly sentenced him to 
forfeit his lawful salary until the next session of 
the legislature, and to pay the costs of his prosecu- 
tion, £32, 19s., 8d., and give bonds in fifty pounds 
for his good and peaceable behavior meanwhile. 
The case of Rev. Philemon Robbins of Bran- 
ford is another of like character. The Baptists of 
Wallingford invited him to preach for them, as there 
was a deep religious interest among them. He 
agreed to go. A remonstrance was sent him by 



Their Final Separation 49 

forty-two members of Mr. Whittlesey's church. 
Two ministers of neighboring churches wrote ad- 
vising him not to go. He had promised to go. 
The case seemed urgent. He went. He was tried 
by the consociation, and found guilty. He was 
deposed from the ministry. Various charges were 
brought against him, showing how deep was the 
feeling among the established churches of the colony 
against the state of things brought about by the 
revival. The vote expelling Mr. Robbins from the 
ministry was as follows : — 

This consociation do now upon the whole judge 
and determine the said Mr. Robbins unworthy the 
ministerial character and Christian communion; 
and accordingly do, in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, according to the word of God, and the pow- 
ers invested in this consociation by the ecclesiastical 
constitution of this government, depose the said 
Mr. Philemon Robbins from his ministerial office 
and ministerial and pastoral relation to the first 
church in said Branford, and debar and suspend 
him from communion in any of the churches of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

The church, however, stood by their pastor, and 
he continued to minister to them. 

The attempt to enforce the Saybrook Platform 
was vigorous and determined, but was not always 
successful. Every possible measure was taken 

both by the legislature, and by the leaders among 
the clergy, the former usually following the lead of 
the latter, to suppress zealous, experimental preach- 



50 The Separates 

ers and people. Ministers were put out of associa- 
tions and consociations; and men and women were 
excluded from communion for the offence of going 
to hear these preachers. Such facts show how 
violent was the spirit of opposition aroused by the 
Great Awakening. Further action of the legislature 
in October, 1743, was taken in obedience to a purpose 
to exclude all obnoxious preachers from abroad from 
the colony. lit was intended to prevent men like 
Whitefield and Tennent from coming into Connecti- 
cut. It provided that, if any foreigner or stranger, 
not an inhabitant of the colony, should return into it, 
after he had been transported out of it by order of 
the courts, and should preach or teach or exhort in 
any town or society within its borders, it should be 
the duty of the proper officer of the law to cause the 
offender to be arrested and brought before him, and, 
in case of his guilt, to bind him "in the penal sum 
of one hundred pounds lawful money, to his peace- 
able and good behavior, and that 1 he will not offend 
again in like manner/' Then the offender should 
be summarily ejected from the colony, and be re- 
quired to "pay down the cost of his transportation." 
The repeal of the act "for the ease of such as 
soberly dissent" from the Saybrook Platform, in 
May, 1743, left no relief for dissenters from the es- 
tablished mode of worship, except upon application 
to the General Assembly, which was growing more 
rigorous in its enforcement of conformity. This 
act of repeal gave liberty to sober dissenters to apply 



Their Final Separation $1 

for relief, and it was promised that they should be 
heard. If they had any characteristics which dis- 
tinguished them from Presbyterians or Congrega- 
tionalists, they might expect indulgence upon taking 
oath, and subscribing to the declaration provided for 
such cases; but otherwise none need expect indul- 
gence. Thus liberty of conscience was put within 
the reach of Baptists, Episcopalians and others, who 
were thus relieved from taxation to support the es- 
tablished churches and their ministers. But for 
dissenting Congregationalists there was no redress. 
The adoption of the Cambridge Platform served 
only to distinguish those who adopted it as Congre- 
gationalists, and liable to the full penalties of the 
law. 

Mr. John Owen of Groton was arrested for ut- 
tering hard speeches against the law^s and the offi- 
cers of the government, and for advocating princi- 
ples calculated to bring the government into con- 
tempt. Mr. Owen and Mr. Pomeroy were brought 
before the assembly in May, 1744, to answer to the 
charges made against them. Mr. Owen made some 
slight concessions and was dismissed on paying the 
cost of his prosecution. Mr. Pomeroy, as we have 
seen, did not come off so easily. These are ex- 
amples, which might be considerably multiplied, of 
the strenuous measures which were "itaken to sup- 
press the zealous, experimental preachers and people, 
both by the legislature and the leaders among the 
clergy," many of whom, Trumbull tells us, were 



52 _ The Separates 

"preachers of a dead, cold morality, without any 
distinction of it from heathen morality, by the prin- 
ciples of evangelical love and faith." Zeal, ex- 
perimental knowledge of religion, earnestness in 
preaching, were termed enthusiasm, and enthu- 
siasm was disorderly. While the civil authorities 
were rigorously enforcing the laws, the clergy were 
adoplting measures no less severe in suspending mem- 
bers from their communion for the sin of going to 
hear zealous preachers like Whitefield, Wheelock, 
Pomeroy and others. Nor did these pastors always 
stop to ask the churches, but in some cases sus- 
pended offending members by their own act. In 
some cases, Trumbull tells us, this suspension laslfed 
ten or twelve years, till the pastors were dead and 
succeeded by others. In many instances consocia- 
tions ordained men against the opposition of a large 
majority, not only of (the church, but of the legal 
voters, as will be seen later. Not only were mem- 
bers expelled from churches, but also earnest, godly 
ministers were put out of associations because of 
their zeal. 

It must be borne in mind that the action of the 
New Haven Association in 1741 secured the calling 
of the council at Guilford in November of that year. 
The action of that council resulted in the rigorous 
restrictive legislation of 1742, and finally, in 1743, 
in removing all relief for dissenJters from the estab- 
lished order who were Congregationalists. The ac- 
tion of the legislature in 1743 was taken with a view 



Their Final Separation 53 

to suppress enthusiasm, and was directly the result 
of action taken by the General Association at New 
London, June 15, 1742. After recognizing the 
fact that God had visited his people and stirred up 
great numbers to ask what they must do to be 
saved, and expressing thankfulness for this visita- 
tion, and after expressing the belief that the enemy 
of souls was very busy in efforts to destroy the 
work of God, the Association said : — 

We think it our duty to advise and entreat the 
ministers and churches, of the colony, and recom- 
mend it to the several particular associations, to 
stand well upon their guard, in such a day as this, 
that no detriment arise to the interest of our grealt 
Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. 

Particularly, that no errors in doctrine, whether 
among ourselves or foreigners, nor disorders in 
practice, do get in among us, or tares be sown 
in the Lord's field. 

That seasonable and due testimony be borne 
against such errors and irregularities, as do already 
prevail among some persons ; as particularly the de- 
pending upon and following impulses and impres- 
sions made on the mind, as though they were im- 
mediate revelations of some truth or duty that is 
not revealed in the word of God : Laying too much 
weight on bodily agitations, raptures, extasies, vi- 
sions, &c. : Ministers disorderly intruding into other 
ministers' parishes : Laymen taking it upon them, in 
an unwarrantable manner, publicly to teach and ex- 
hort : Rash censuring and judging of others : That 
the elders be careful to take heed to themselves and 
doctrine, that they may save themselves, and those 



54 The Separates 

that bear them : ThaJt they approve themselves in all 
things as the ministers of God, by honor and dis- 
honor, by good report and evil report; That none 
be lifted up by applause to a vain conceit, nor any 
be cast down by any contempt thrown upon them, 
to the neglect of their work: and that they study 
unity, love and peace among themselves. 

And further, that thev endeavour to heal the un- 
happy divisions that are already made in some of 
the churches, and that the like for the future be 
prevented : That a just deference be paid to the laws 
of the magistrate lately made to suppress disorders : 
That no countenance be given to such as trouble our 
churches, who are, according to the constitution of 
our churches, under censure, suspension, or depo- 
sition, for errors in doctrine or life. 

The hand of Eliphalet Adams, pastor of the 
church in New London, was undoubtedly in the fore- 
going. Davenport had branded him as unconverted, 
to the great horror of all who knew him and bis 
godly life. A large separation from his church took 
place the next November. He was moderator of 
the meeting. The action taken as quoted above 
seems to have been shaped by his experience and 
that of others who had met with the same treat- 
ment from Davenport. But whether his hand was in 
the document or not, the sentiment embodied in 
it naturally fits what we should expect him to say. 
In any case the legislature took this action up and 
framed it into rigorous staltute the following year. 

It therefore appears that all the opposition to the 
Great Awakening which took shape in civil law, 



Their Final Separation 55 

originated with the established churches. This can 
be accounted for only by the fact that the deadening 
effects of the practice of the Half- Way Covenant 
for almost a century, still remained. Nor did the 
revival put an end to the practice, so deeply had it 
become rooted in the very life of the churches. 
Rather, it limited the effect of the revival. In 
churches which seemed ito share most deeply in the 
Awakening, the Half-Way Covenant continued 
with unabated vigor after the revival ceased. If, 
during the period of awakened sensibilities, the 
practice was suspended, it reasserted itself, when the 
period was at an end, in not a few churches, with 
its old-time vigor. Mr. Edwards' church in North- 
ampton was at the center of the religious interest. 
Yet in 1749, when he preached his great sermon 
on the proper qualifications for church membership, 
so firmly imbedded in the belief and practice of the 
church were the views which Stoddard had advo- 
cated, that this revolutionary sermon cost Edwards 
his pastorate in 1750, Most of the churches of the 
council, his own church, and the whole town, were 
against him. Stoddard had advocated "the Right 
of Visible Saints to the Lord's Supper, though they 
be destitute of a Saving Work of God's Spirit on 
their Hearts." Mr. Edwards, in his sermon, de- 
fended the negative of the question, "Whether, ac- 
cording to the rules of Christ, any ought to be 
admitted to the communion and privileges of mem- 
bers of the visible church of Christ, in complete 



56 The Separates 

standing, but such as are in profession, and in the 
eye of the church's Christian judgment, godly or 
gracious persons ?" The significant thing about the 
conclusion of this controversy is, that the council 
was constituted of nine of the principal churches 
in the neighborhood, — Enfield, Sheffield, Sutton, 
Reading, Springfield First, Hatfield, Sunderland, 
Hadley First, Pelham and Cold Spring. There 
was but a minority to vote for Mr. Edwards and 
his views. The Great Awakening had not been deep 
and lasting enough in its effects to eradicate the 
deleterious practice of the Half- Way Covenant. To 
do that a strong and evangelical pastor, defending 
tohe truth as taught in the Word of God, and labor- 
ing for the purity of the church, had to be sacrificed. 
After the immediate results of the revival the re- 
action was alarming. So tremendous was the sweep 
of the decline that, in 1758, Rev. Benjamin Throop 
in an election sermon said, "There is an awful 
Decay of Religion . . . the fear of God is 
amazingly cast off this day. While some are dis- 
puting the Personality of the Godhead, and deny- 
ing the Lord that bought them; others are ridi- 
culing the important Doctrine of Atonement, and 
casting contempt upon the efficacious Merits of a 
Glorious Redeemer; many are exploding the Doc- 
trine of free and Sovereign Grace and exalting 
human Nature under all its Depravity to a situation 
equal to all its necessities; thereby perverting the 
Designs of the Gospel, and frustrating, as far as may 



Their Final Separation 57 

be, the Means of our Salvation." The sweep of the 
pendulum was backward, and it had not yet reached 
the farthest point. The religious decay which had 
preceded the revival of 1740 was again in full proc- 
ess, and the Half- Way Covenant was yet to work 
greater harm to the churches. 

Such was the spiritual state of the churches 
throughout Connecticut and New England. This 
was the beginning of that schism which marked the 
earlier years of the nineteenth century, and remains 
in the Unitarian body. It was against these condi- 
tions, and all that wenit with them, that the Separate 
movement was a protest. It was attended, as w r ill be 
seen later, by many false estimates of what consti- 
tutes a truly religious character, what is evidence of 
being a child of God, by much ill-advised and ill- 
tempered zeal, and by an unwarrantable censorious- 
ness of spirit. But, on the other hand, the foregoing 
narrative shows that there was not a little in the 
condition and practice of the established churches 
to awaken the deep solicitude of earnest souls. The 
movement may have been ill-advised, but it can- 
not be denied that there appeared to be good reasons 
for it. Their alleged grounds for separation uni- 
formly were: "That the standing churches were 
not true churches, but of anti-Christ; that hypocrisy 
was encouraged in them, and they could have no 
communion with hypocrites. They maintained that 
the church should be pure, undefiled with hypocrisy, 
and that no hypocrite could abide with them. Upon 



5 8 The Separates 

this principle the Separate churches set out," says 
Trumbull. Certainly no criticism of their action 
can be made at this point. 

Several statements of reasons for the movement 
serve to shed light upon it; especially as they were 
made by leaders in the movement. Solomon Paine, 
of Canterbury, wrote a pamphlet on a "Short View 
of the Constitution of the Church of Christ!, and 
the difference between it and the church established 
in Connecticut." In this pamphlet he attempted to 
show that a church established by law is not a 
church of Christ. He also gave a reason for sepa- 
ration which is in accord with the views generally 
held by the Separates. "The cause," he says, "of 
a just separation of the saints from their fellow 
men in their worship, is not that there are hypo- 
crites in the visible church of Christ, nor that some 
fall into scandalous sins in the Church, nor because 
the minister is flat, formal, or even saith he is a 
minister of Christ, and is not, and doth lie; but it 
is their being yoked together, or incorporated into 
a corrupt constitution, under the government of an- 
other supreme head than Christ, and governed by 
the precepts of men, put into the hands of unbe- 
lievers, which will not purge out any of the corrupt 
fruit, but naturally bears it and nourishes it, and 
denies the power of godliness, both in the govern- 
ing and gracious effects of it." He went on to say 
that he knew the established worship to be as idola- 
trous as that of Nebuchadnezzer's golden image, 



Their Final Separation 59 

and that he could no more support it than Israel 
could Jereboam's priests which he had made for his 
calves. Here is expressed the prevailing spirit of 
the Separates in their withdrawal from the regular 
churches. 

This may be further illustrated by reasons 
given by other individuals. One man in the North 
Parish of New London said, "God's having left 
[the regular church] was a sufficient warrant for 
his leaving;" another said, "That there was no 
more of God in the congregation than there was a 
black dance;" another said "That his dissatisfaction 
was our selling the Gospel for £400 a year, and his 
darkness in attending this meeting, that the Spirit 
told him he should have light upon his withdraw- 
ing, and so he found it." A man in North Ston- 
ington, where the Separate church and the old 
church were happily reunited under Rev. Joseph 
Aver, in 1827, gave, as his reason for separation, 
that the pastor discountenanced "public exhorting on 
the Sabbath at the meeting-house;" that he checked 
the outcries of the people in time of divine service; 
that the pastor admitted to the pulpit persons whom 
he looked upon as not experienced men. A woman 
in Canterbury gave as her reasons for separation, 
that Mr. Cogswell did not visit enough, and added 
sixty-two Scripture texts as explaining her action, 
among which were Solomon's Song 1 : 7, 8 and Acts 
xiii-xv. Just how these were related to her action 
it is difficult at this distance to see. But these are 



60 The Separates 

examples of the reasons given for this movement. 
Probably the most effective was their well ground- 
ed aversion to an establishment in which the affairs 
of the church were "governed by the precepts of 
men, put into the hands of unbelievers," as stated 
by Solomon Paine. Certainly, looking at things 
from their point of view, no other course seemed 
open to them but the one they took. 

A Separatist, or, a strict Congregational, Church 
was gathered at Preston, March 17, 1747. Six per- 
sons signed the covenant, and took the vows of 
God upon them. The following statement of their 
reasons for taking this step is quoted from their 
records : 

This Church is Caled y e Separate Church be- 
cause y e first Planned ; in this : Came ovt from y e 
old Church in y e Town. which caled it Self Partly 
Congregational & Partly Presby terial ; who sub- 
mitted to y e Laws of y e Government to Settle ar- 
ticles of faith; to govern y e Gathering of y e Church 
& Settlement & Support of its ministers build- 
ing of meeting houses, Preaching Exhorting &c. : 
as also y e Church Refuses y e members should Im- 
prove there Gifts In Preaching & Exhorting 
Publicly &c as also were offended at y e Powerful 
opperations of y e Spirit of God, & did not make 
Saving Convertion y« necessary terms of Com- 
munion: but admitted unbelievers to Communion: 
also made half members: Baptized there children, 
&c. 

This is a clear and explicit statement of the rea- 
sons for the separate movement in Preston. There 



Their Final Separation 61 

were three: State control of the Church, refusal 
to let the members exercise their gifts in preach- 
ing and exhorting, and laxness in the requirements 
for admission to the church. This statement applies 
not only to the case of the Preston Separate Church, 
but to all the others. 

The following, also quoted from the records of 
the Preston Church, recites, six years later, the local 
causes which led to its organization : 

"It pleased ye Lord in y e yeare 1740 to visit this 
Land with the Remarkable outpouring of his holy 
Spirit : and y e Light break forth like y e morning : 
and y e Greate Declentions and Corruptions of y* 
Churches of Newengland was Descovered, and 
when it could not be Healed for Both y e true Dis- 
cipline, Doctrine and Messenger were Rejected we 
bare our testimony to them and came ovt from them 
to Carry on y e Worship of God according to our 
Knowledg of the will of God : and Gathered into 
Church order : and ye Lord has Graciously owned 
us ever Sence : which is now Six yeares : at our 
first Covenanting there was Six: and now there is 
neare Seventy members. 

This record was entered on the books of the 
Church in 1753-4, by Paul Park, who was minister 
of the church from 1747 till his death in 1802, at the 
age of eighty-two; a period of fifty-five years. The 
records of the doings of this body are prefaced as 
follows : 

A Record of y e Discipline of a Congregational 
Church of Christ Tn Preston; which y e Lord hewed 
out of y e Mountains of wickedness and Bound to- 



62 The Separates 

gether in ye Bands of Christian Love, & Called forth 
to witness for his Grace and truth: By Declaring 
what God had Don for there souls, and visibly Cov- 
enanting and walking together in all External or- 
dinances of ye Gospill. 

These quotations from the records of this Sepa- 
rate Church in Preston are instructive. They give 
us a hint as to their views of church order and dis- 
cipline, which were quite at variance with those 
which prevailed among the established churches. 
They evidently believed, as did the Separates of 
England, a hundred and forty years before, that 
the affairs of a local church should be managed 
from within itself. As the established churches did 
not believe, nor practice so, these people felt that 
there was no fellowship for them within these 
churches, and withdrew. Their views of the proper 
qualifications for church membership were so dia- 
metrically opposed to those which were commonly 
held by the regular churches that separation seemed 
to tthem to be the only alternative. The separation 
therefore took place in several of the towns of New 
London and Windham Counties, to which it was 
chiefly confined. In Hartford County something of 
the same spirit existed in Windsor, Enfield, Suf- 
field and Middletown. Trumbull says, "Thus dif- 
ferent were the principles, views, and feelings of the 
two sorts of Christians. The one were humble, 
docile, and willing to come to the light that their 
works might manifest that they were wrought in 



Their Final Separation 63 

God. They, like the primitive Christians, continued 
stedfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, 
and in breaking of bread together." These were 
the established churches. Whether Trumbull's pic- 
ture is true to life some might easily doubt after 
reading all the facts. Of the Separatists he says, 
"The others were haughty, bitter, censorious : dis- 
affected to their teachers; disowned the churches 
with which they had covenanted; and treated their 
brethren rather as worshippers of Satan than as 
followers of Christ." 

Without doubt there was more or less of the 
spirit, which justified these words of Trumbull, at 
work to produce the Separate movement. There 
was in it more or less misguided zeal and enthu- 
siasm, not tempered by discretion. Nevertheless, 
the abuses against which the Separates protested 
actually existed. Their complaint that unconverted 
people were admitted to the churches was well taken. 
Probably they were not without reason for feeling 
that the pulpit of the regular churches lacked power. 
At any rate, these people withdrew because they saw 
these evils in the churches, saw no other way to 
escape them, and in so doing followed the example 
of the Separatists of Scrooby, who could no longer 
tolerate the abuses of the English church. Like the 
latter, the Separates of New England believed that 
Christ was the head and sole source of authority 
of the Church, and therefore that the right of self- 
government was vested in it. The only possible 



64 The Separates 

issue of such a radical difference could be either a 
retreat on the part of one party or the other, or a 
separation. The latter was the result. 



Ill 

THEIR DOCTRINES 

When a body of people, following deep-seated 
religious convictions, withdraw from those with 
whom they had heretofore been in fellowship, we 
naturally enquire as to their tenets. In general, it 
may be said at this point, to quote Mr. Trumbull, 
that "Exclusive of some peculiarities, more especial- 
ly relative to the constitutions of the churches and 
church discipline, they [the Separates] maintained 
the doctrines contained in the Westminster Cate- 
chism and Confession of Fbith." The same author, 
who cannot be suspected of a leaning towards 
them, says, that, with respect to their alleged errors, 
he does not find that they preached or propagated 
them, and they never taught contrary to sound 
doctrine, and were evangelical on the doc- 
trine of the Trinity. "The Separatists in 
Canterbury/' says Rev. Robeiit C. Learned, "re- 
tained the same forms of profession and cove- 
nant which had been in use in the original church, 
and which were drawn in the sternest phrase of 
Calvanism, and this was likewise adopted by the 
'Separate Church in Windham/ " Their errors were 
only such as they are liable to who let zeal outrun 
discretion and judgment. The Separates did not 
come out from the original churches on account 

65 



66 The Separates 

of doctrinal differences but chiefly on account of dif- 
ferent views of administration. 

The doctrines held by the Separates may be 
learned from two sources. The one is what their 
enemies say; the other is their own statements. 
Let us first enquire what the churches from which 
they came out, say about their views. They were 
called errors. But they were the beliefs of these 
people. At this distance, when they can be judged 
dispassionately, they will not all of them be branded 
as errors. 

In 1744 the Winham County Association appoint- 
ed a committee to enquire into the case of the 
Separates. As a result of their investigations 

they addressed a lettlter, December 11 of that year, 
"to the people of the several Societies in Said 
County." In this address it was set forth that 
"There has been of late, in a few years past, a very 
great and merciful revival of religion in most of 
the towns and societies in this county, as well as 
in many other parts of the land." They also ex- 
pressed the belief that the Prince of Darkness had 
made this awakening an occasion to get in some of 
his work, in order to destroy men's souls. In this 
work the ways of the Holy Spirit, it was said, were 
imitated as nearly as possible "both by setting on 
imaginary frights and terrors, in some instances, on 
men's minds, somewhat resembling (the convictions of 
the blessed Spirit and awakenings of the conscience 
for sin, and also filling their minds with flashes of 



Their Doctrines 67 

joy and false comforts, resembling somewhat, in a 
general way, the consolations of the Holy Ghost." 
The address goes on to say that this so-called work 
of the evil one was not always plainly distinguished 
from the real work of the Holy Spirit, for there 
"was some times a mixture of such things with the 
true experiences of the people of God." Owing to 
violent and injudicious opposition of some who saw 
bad things in it, there were those who rashly con- 
cluded that the whole was of the devil; "while others, 
on the other hand, looking on the good, and being 
persuaded that it was a day of God's wonderful 
power and gracious visitation, suddenly and weakly 
concluded that there was little wrong in the ap- 
pearances, beside mere human weaknesses and un- 
avoidable infirmity." "In the progress of the 
work," says Tracy, "'they believed Satan had suc- 
ceeded in instigating some to provoke persecution, 
by which they were hardened more and more in 
their errors." Many were drawn away after them, 
partly out of pity for them, and by the wrong 
conclusion that their sufferings were an evidence 
that they were right, and partly out of opposition to 
others whom they thought to be carnal and ungodly 
men. The address goes on to state what, in the 
opinion of the Windham County Association, were 
some of the fundamental errors of the Separates : 

1. "That it is the will of God to have a pure 
church on earth, in this sense, that all the converted 
should be separated from the unconverted." 



68 The Separates 

From the point of view of the Half- Way Covenant 
this was doubtless an error. But it is difficult to see 
what other view could be held to-day by any evan- 
gelical Congregational church. The error in this 
case seems to attach to the plaintiff rather than to 
the defendant. 

2. "That saints certainly know one another, 
and know who are Christ's true ministers, by their 
own inward feelings, or a communion between 
them in the inward actings of their own souls." 

There may have been some extravagance con- 
nected with this belief that the power to discern re- 
generate persons was given to the church for its per- 
petual guidance. But if the principle involved is 
wrong, then John must have been in error when 
he wrote his first epistle; and Peter's conduct was 
unaccountable when, on his miraculous escape from 
prison, he made his way directly to the bouse where 
he knew that the disciples were gathered in prayer 
for him; and Christ's words were deceiving when 
he said of his disciples, they "have known surely 
that I came out from thee," "they are not of the 
world, even as I am not of the world." 

3. "That no other call is necessary to a person 
undertaking to preach the Gospel, but his being a 
true Christian, and having an inward motion of the 
Spirit, or persuasion in his own mind, that it is the 
will of God that he should preach and perform 
ministerial acts; the consequence of which is, that 
there is no standing instituted ministry in the 



Their Doctrines 69 

Christian church, which may be known by the visi- 
ble laws of Christ's Kingdom/' 

This was in flat contradiction of the view held by 
the established churches, and in open defiance of 
the acts of the legislature of Connecticut, which 
allowed none but regularly constituted ministers to 
preach and perform the regular functions of the 
gospel ministry. As Dr. Walker says, this was a 
convenient view, for they had among them few per- 
sons of superior cultivation. Naturally they fell 
under the guidance of illiterate persons, chosen from 
among themselves, whom they ordained as minis- 
ters of the Word. This became one great source of 
their weakness, and very materially limited the 
sphere of their influence. 

In some particulars their view was correct. It 
is essential that a preacher be "a true Christian;'' 
that he have "an inward motion of the Spirit or 
persuasion," (that it is the will of God that he should 
preach, and much more that is not specified. If by 
denying that there is in the Church a standing, in- 
stituted ministry, they meant a clerical order, such 
as is found in prelatical churches, their view was 
certainly not uncongregational. 

4. "That God disow r ns the ministry and the 
churches in this land, and the ordinances as ad- 
ministered by them." 

5. "That at such meetings of lay preaching and 
exhorting they have more of the presence of God 
than in his ordinances, and under the ministration 



yo The Separates 

of the present ministry, and the administration of 
the ordinances in these churches." 

These last items are matters of opinion. The 
Separates had a right to theirs, for holding which 
they were not wholly without reason. In proof of 
these errors the case of Mr. Elisha Paine was cited 
in the address. He was a man "of much superior 
ability to the others." It was alleged that he lacked 
clear ideas of the Trinity, and sometimes used lan- 
guage tinctured with Sabellianism. On the con- 
trary, Trumbull says, "With respect to the doctrine 
of the Trinity, they preached nothing, I believe, 
contrary to sound doctritie." In the matter of ad- 
mitting members they were more strict than the 
standing churches. It was also alleged, in the ad- 
dress of the Windham County Association, that 
Mr. Paine said that "it was made manifest to him 
that Christ was about to have a pure church, and 
that he had not done his duty in time past in pro- 
moting separations and divisions among the people, 
and that for time to come he should endeavor to 
promote and encourage separations; and that like- 
wise Christ's own ministers would have their 
churches rent from them by reason of their not 
doing their duty in that respect." By this he said 
that he meant the separation of "those who were 
converted from the unconverted in the church." 

Certainly the contention that unconverted persons 
and hypocrites ought not to be in the church would 
strike the average Congregational mind of the 



Their Doctrines yi 

present as quite within the bounds of reason. In 
State establishments, where all who have been bap- 
tized, and live orderly lives, are considered eligible 
to church membership, the opposite view might pre- 
vail. The fact that it did prevail widely in Connec- 
ticut, shows how strong was the trend toward the 
very form of church order from which the Pil- 
grims and the Puritans revolted. 

This is the state of the case against the Separates 
as presented by the plaintiff. If these are the most 
considerable errors which were to be found, there 
is nothing which would be taken seriously to-day. 
At least, one holding them would nolt be likely to 
come under ecclesiastical censure. As the Windham 
Association entered upon the enquiry with no pur- 
pose to screen the Separates, we may believe that 
their statement is the strongest which could possibly 
be made. It is then difficult, at this distance, to see 
why the enginery of the law, and the ecclesiastical 
machinery of the established churches of Connec- 
ticut, should have been brought to bear against the 
Separates as apostates from a pure faith. There can 
be but one explanation, namely, that the charges of 
the Separates against the established churches had 
too much truth in them. The simple fact is that 
these people, in many respects, occupied advanced 
ground, which, at a later date, the churches which 
sat in judgment upon them came to hold. 

The foregoing is the plea of the Windham County 
churches, which felt the movement directly. The 



J2 The Separates 

pastors of these churches were so deeply concerned 
that they called a convention, or consociation, in 
Scotland, January 13, 1747, to take these matters 
into consideration, and to hear the report of a com- 
mittee appointed to enquire into these "divisions 
and errors/' They summoned Mr. Elisha Paine, 
Mr. Solomon Paine, Deacon Marsh, and Mr. 
Thomas Stevens, leading Separates in Canterbury, 
Mansfield and Plainfield, to appear before them 
and give their reasons for withdrawing from the 
regular churches. Whether the summons was an- 
swered by the presence of the gentlemen named we 
do not know. But the consociation met and rec- 
ommended the churches of the county to keep the 
second Tuesday in the following February as a day 
of solemn fasting and prayer, "to seek the Divine 
direction in that day of division and error, and to 
supplicate the pouring out of God's holy spirit upon 
the people." They then adjourned to the second 
Tuesday in February, the eleventh, when they met 
again. The facts in the case, the confession of 
faith, and the Covenant of the Separates were con- 
sidered. They decided that the confession of faith 
was, in general, orthodox, but deficient in respect to 
the offices, work and mediation of Christ, the nature 
of saving faith, the institutions and ordinances of 
the gospel, and the worship of God in church as- 
semblies. The consociation also found that, in all 
cases where the Separates had deviated from the 
confessions of faith of the regular churches, they 



Their Doctrines 73 

had marred the sense, or perverted the doctrine of 
Scripture, so that they had opened the door to the 
entrance of "Moravian, Antinomian, Anabaptistical, 
and Quakerish errors : and that under a pretence of 
congregational discipline, they had set up as abso- 
lute an independency as ever was heard of in the 
church." The consociation was in error here, as 
the reader will see, when he reads the statement of 
the Separates themselves, whose church polity was 
more nearly in accord with modern Congregational- 
ism /than the Presbyterial plan of the established 
churches of Connecticut could possibly be. The 
consociation also remarked upon the ignorance of 
the teachers of the Separates, their need to be 'taught 
the first principles of the oracles of God, and their 
utter unfitness to expound the Scriptures, and act 
as officers and teachers in the church. In most 
cases this contention was just. But the force of it 
was very much diminished by 'the successful efforts 
of the regular churches to put a stop to the schools 
which the Separates endeavored to establish for the 
purpose of raising up an educated ministry. 

The consociation then proceeded to pass a reso- 
lution to the following effect : — First they declared 
their own adherence to the Westminster Confession 
of Faith, and that there was no just ground of 
separation from the regular churches. Then they 
resolved that the Separates had not taken gospel 
measures to convince the churches of their alleged 
errors, before separating from them; that the sepa- 



74 The Separates 

ration had not been effected in a way to promote 
peace; that they had manifestly departed from the 
true faith, and from the ordinances of the gospel; 
that their separation was unchristian, and divisive, 
rending the visible body of Christ ; that the regular 
churches ought to look upon those who continue 
in these errors, as scandalous and disorderly, and 
therefore to withdraw communion from them. 
This would not, it was added, preclude any church 
from taking measures to reclaim particular persons, 
if it should be judged a duty. But the Separate 
churches were practically disfellowshiped. 

Before listening to the statement of the Sepa- 
rates themselves, we will examine the state of the 
case between the regular churches and those who 
were disaffected, as it is stated by the following 
resolutions passed by the General Association in 

1744: 

Whereas, at all times, but more especially at this 
time, sundry persons unjustly disaffected to, and 
prejudiced against either the minister or church, or 
both, to which they belong, under the influence of 
such disaffection, withdraw from their worship and 
communion; and although as yet they are under no 
censure, yet we think that other ministers and 
churches receiving such disaffected persons to privi- 
leges, serves to encourage and strengthen them, in 
their unjust disaffection and unreasonable separa- 
tion; which, to prevent, it may be proper that the 
minister, by himself, or in conjunction with some of 
the brethren of such church, from which there is 
•such a separation, to write to the minister or minis- 



Their Doctrines 75 

ters of such churches, to which the aforesaid dis- 
affected members repair for privileges, and in a 
brotherly and kind manner, represent to them the 
true state of such members and churches, desiring 
them to discountenance and prevent such separa- 
tions. And in case a minister, or ministers, so in- 
formed or applied to, shall still receive and encour- 
age such persons, that then the complainant lay the 
matter before the association to which that minister 
doth belong, and that the association deal with him 
as the nature and circumstances of the case doth 
require. And inasmuch as we judge that such sepa- 
rations, countenanced as above, are the source and 
origin of much difficulty, and a practice big with 
many mischiefs, we earnestly recommend the affair 
to the particular associations, that in this, or some 
other way, they provide against so great an evil, that 
it may be, by the divine blessing, soon and easily 
cured. And that ministers should be very cautious 
of entertaining such disaffected persons, and of 
hearing and countenancing 'their reports of or 
against their ministers and churches. 

That the entering of a minister, or of a number 
of ministers, into any established parish in this gov- 
ernment, and there gathering a church of members, 
that had before disorderly separated themselves from 
the church to which they belonged, and some of them 
actually under ecclesiastical censure, is just matter 
of offence. 

That requiring persons particularly to promise to 
walk in communion with that church of Christ into 
which they seek admission, conscientiously attending 
and upholding the public worship of God in that 
place, until regularly dismissed therefrom, is not a 
hard or unreasonable term of communion. 



y6 The Separates 

That it is not advisable to admit a person to 
communion, who refuseth to submit to the above 
mentioned terms, but insists on liberty to go to other 
places, when and where he pleaseth, to attend public 
worship and ordinances. 

In the foregoing vote the General Association 
took direct issue with the Separatists, who held that 
they had a right to worship God according to the 
dictates of their own consciences, and at such times 
and in such places as they pleased. They therefore 
ignored all acts, civil or ecclesiastical, which inter- 
fered with this liberty. This, they claimed, was the 
ground on which the Pilgrims acted, and the only 
one on which their separation from the Church of 
England could be justified. But the laws were 
against them, and were executed, as we shall see, 
with all their severity. The foregoing plan of dis- 
cipline adopted by the General Association was in- 
tended to force the Separatists back into conform- 
ity. But it failed. These people may have been 
wrong in regarding too lightly their covenant obli- 
gations, and wrong in their disorderly method of 
separation; but otherwise they were as right, in 
their position and action, as were the Separatists of 
England. And if the established church of Con- 
necticut was as persistent and severe as the Es- 
tablished Church of England in refusing the rights 
of conscience to dissenters, the Separatists of Con- 
necticut pursued the only course open to sober 
consciences. It is not a question whether they were 



Their Doctrines 77 

actuated by misguided enthusiasm and mistaken 
zeal, but what did their consciences compel them to 
do ? Foolish they may have been, but when we come 
to consider the treatment which they received, we 
shall see that self-respecting consciences had no 
other alternative. 

We now come to consider the defendant's state- 
ment of the case. October 9, 1745, a Separate 
church was organized at Mansfield. Its confession 
of faith may be taken as the Separatists' own declar- 
ation of their view r s upon the questions in debate. 
We quote the articles bearing upon the points at 
issue. It will be noticed in reading them that the 
doctrinal basis does not differ materially from that 
of other Congregational churches of those times : — 

Article 15. We believe we are of that number 
who w r ere elected of God to eternal life and that 
Christ did live on earth, die and rise again for us 
in particular; that he doth now, in virtue of his own 
merits and satisfaction, make intercession to God 
for us, and that we are now justified in the sight 
of God for the sake of Christ, and shall be owned 
by him at the great and general judgment; — which 
God hath made us to believe by sending, according 
to his promise (John 16) the Holy Ghost into our 
souls, who hath made particular application of the 
above articles. 

18. That all doubting in a believer is sinful, be- 
ing contrary to the command of God, and hurtful to 
the soul, and an hindrance to the performance of 
duty. 

20. We believe, by the testimony of Scripture 
and by our own experience, that true believers, by 



78 The Separates 

virtue of their union to Christ by faith have com- 
munion with God, and by the same faith are in 
Christ united to one another; which is the unity of 
the Spirit, whereby they are made partakers of each 
other's gifts and graces, without which union there 
can be no communion with God, nor with the 
saints. 

21. That whoever presumes to administer or 
partake of the seals of the covenant of grace with- 
out saving faith, are guilty of sacrilege, and are in 
danger of sealing their own damnation. 

This took direct issue with the practices of the 
established churches under the Half- Way Covenant, 
by which persons who could lay no claim to experi- 
ence of renewing and sanctifying grace were admit- 
ted at first to the privilege of baptism for their 
children, and afterwards to the privileges of full 
church membership. It is difficult to say that the 
contention of the Separates was wrong. The es- 
tablished churches held that all should be admitted 
to the church as believers who were not "proved 
to be otherwise." The Separates contended that the 
doors of the church should be kept carefully closed 
against such as could not give satisfying evidence 
of their piety. And they based this contention upon 
their belief that saints have certain knowledge of 
each others' piety. Their position was impregnable. 
The separation did not take place, as we have said, 
on account of doctrinal differences. The Separates 
were as Calvinistic in their beliefs as the established 
church. The whole difficulty lay in their decided 



Their Doctrines 79 

ami just protest against admitting to church privi- 
leges unconverted men — a matter about which there 
would be no controversy now. The consensus of 
evangelical Christian opinion now would unani- 
mously support the contention of the Separates. 
The Half-Way Covenant w^as the ploughshare 
which was driven through the churches of the 
eighteenth century, and started the cleavage which 
divided the churches of the nineteenth century. If 
their movement had been supported and balanced 
by education and intelligence of the same high 
order as the purpose which actuated them, it would 
have been only second in importance and far-reach- 
ing results to the movement of the Separatists of 
1608 at Scrooby. It would have done much to pre- 
vent the discussions which ended the eighteenth 
century and resulted in the Unitarian defection in 
the nineteenth. 

The difference in the matter of church order and 
discipline between the Separates and the estab- 
lished churches was far wider and more radical. As 
we have seen by quotations from the records of the 
Preston Separate Church, the Separates regarded 
the regular churches as "partly Congregational 
and partly Presbyterial." They themselves claimed 
to be strictly Congregational, insisting that each 
church had the right to regulate its own internal 
affairs; settle its own articles of faith; choose, call 
and settle its own minister; build its own house 
of worship, without interference of the civil author- 



80 The Separates 

ities. The twenty-second article of the Confession 
of Faith adopted by the Separate Church of Mans- 
field had several sections which related to church 
order and discipline, viz. : 

That true believers, and they only, have a right 
to give up their children to God in baptism. 

That at all times the doors of the church should 
be carefully kept against such as cannot give a 
satisfying evidence of the work of God upon their 
souls, whereby they are united to Christ. 

That a number of true believers, being thus es- 
sentially and visibly united together, have power to 
choose and ordain such officers as Christ has ap- 
pointed in his church, such as bishops, elders and 
deacons; and by the same power to depose such 
officers as evidently appear to walk contrary to the 
Gospel, or fall into any heresy. Yet we believe, in 
such cases, it is convenient to take advice of neigh- 
boring churches of the same constitution. 

We believe that all gifts and graces that are be- 
stowed upon any of the members, are to be improved 
by them for the good of the whole; in order to 
which there ought to be such a gospel freedom 
whereby the church may know where every particu- 
lar gift is, that it may be improved in its proper 
place and to its right end, for the glory of God and 
the good of the church. 

That every brother that is qualified by God for the 
same has a right to preach according to the meas- 
ure of faith, and that the essential qualification 
for preaching is wrought by the Spirit of God; 
and that the knowledge of tongues and liberal 
sciences are not absolutely necessary; yet they are 
convenient, and will doubtless be profitable if rightly 



Their Doctrines 81 

used; but if brought in to supply the want of the 
Spirit of God, they prove a snare to those that use 
them and all that follow them. 

It would be difficult to find an association of 
evangelical ministers to-day who would take issue 
with this statement of doctrine. They believed that 
it was the will of God to have a pure Church. This 
is not saying, by any means, that the Separatists 
reached their ideal. But their ideal was high, noble 
and correct. 

The church in Canterbury took its stand upon the 
Cambridge Platform and dissented from the Say- 
brook Platform as follows : — 

From the discipline set up and expressed therein 
— it appearing to us to be contrary to the authority 
of Chrislfc set up in his Word, which we look upon as 
complete and none can pretend to amend or add to it 
without casting open contempt on Christ and his 
Holy Spirit. The said Saybrook Platform takes 
the power from the brethren of the Church and puts 
an absolute and decisive power in the Consociation 
contrary to Christ, and also has created an Associa- 
tion not warranted by Christ in his word. These 
things the church looks upon to be anti-Christian, 
unscriptural, and leading to papal usurpation over 
the consciences of God's people. Also, there being 
no half members in Christ, this church covenants 
to admit none to own the covenant that will not 
come to full communion, it being inconsistent with 
the covenant, nor will we admit any to baptism but 
true believers and their seed. 

This declaration of the Canterbury church is a 
clear and explicit statement of principles common to 



82 The Separates 

all the Separates. It put them into open antago- 
nism to the practices of the churches under the Say- 
brook Platform. Their Congregationalism was of 
the primitive order and above challenge. It was 
nearly that of Robert Browne. Their doctrine of 
the church and its officers is Scriptural. Their 
recognition of the fellowship of neighboring 
churches of the same constitution in advisory coun- 
cils was sound. Their views of the ministry and of 
qualifications for it, are worth consideration. They 
were wide apart from the established churches of 
Connecticut in this matter of church order, but were 
in close sympathy with the views which now prevail; 
For example, Dr. Dexter says, "A true church must 
be composed of those who believe themselves to be, 
and publicly profess to be, Christians." This is 
precisely the contention of the Separates in the ar- 
ticles of faith quoted above. Dr. Dexter also says 
that "the right and duty of choosing all necessary of- 
ficers, of admitting, disciplining and dismissing 
members, and transacting all other appropriate busi- 
ness of a Christian church," are vested in its mem- 
bership. This is precisely the ground taken by the 
Separates. The same authority says that while 
every church is independent of any outward juris- 
diction or control, yet when difficulties arise, or im- 
portant matters are to be decided, as when a pastor 
is to be settled or dismissed, or a creed is to be 
adopted, or organic life is to be commenced, "it is 
proper that the advice of other churches should be 



Their Doctrines 83 

sought and given in council/ ' These are almost 
the exact words used in the Mansfield articles of 
faith. In the records of the Preston Separate 
church are many instances in which a delegate was 
sent with the pastor to serve neighboring churches 
upon councils summoned to give advice in important 
cases. Other comparisons might be made which 
would show the agreement of the Separates' views 
of ecclesiastical polity with those which are held by 
Congregationalists now. They were strict Con- 
gregationali&is, and were really in advance of their 
times, in Connecticut, at least. 

It would not be far wrong to say that they were, 
in many respects, the advance-guard of modern 
Congregationalism. They certainly had something 
to do with bringing to an end forever the connection 
between church and state in Connecticut. They 
flatly refused to be taxed to support the established 
order, and, as good Congregationalists are bound to 
do, resented any intermeddling with the internal af- 
fairs of the local church, beyond the friendly and fra- 
ternal advice of sister churches. Advice they ac- 
cepted and followed; authority they rejected. They 
believed in the autonomy of the local church. The 
ground which they took was that taken by Dr. 
Nathaniel Emmons, when he declared that a Con- 
gregational church is "a pure democracy, which 
places every member of the church upon a level, and 
gives him perfect liberty with order," and that the 
pastor of such a church "stands upon the same 



84 The Separates 

ground as the private brother." They insisted, and 
rightly, that a Congregational church is self-gov- 
erned, and, to use the words of Dr. Emmons, that 
"One church has as much power as another." So 
the Separate movement was a distinct and radical 
break w r ith Connecticut Consociationism, which Dr. 
Emmons asserted "leads to Presbyterianism," and 
that "to Episcopacy," and that "to Roman Cathol- 
icism, and Roman Catholicism is an ultimate fact." 
Emmons being of Connecticut stock, having been 
born in East Haddam in 1745, and having graduated 
from Yale College twenty-two years later, knew the 
workings of Connecticut Consociationism and its 
trend. The Separates believed with modern Con- 
gregationalists in "the absolute democracy of a Con- 
gregational church." The statement of the Preston 
Separate church, giving reasons for their withdrawal 
from the regular church, which is quoted in the pre- 
vious chapter, proves this. Their claim to the title, 
"Strict Congregationalists," cannot be disputed. 

The Separates, as a body, held to the doctrine of 
infant baptism, with tenacity. But on this question 
they were divided, many holding to the Baptist faith 
in this regard, and ultimately leaving the former 
and joining the latter. In 1753 the church in 

Preston withdrew fellowship from Samuel Palmer, 
who had joined during the previous year, because he 
declared his conviction that "infant baptism was not 
of God." The church pursued the usual course of 
discipline, admonished him of his error, and tried in 



Their Doctrines 85 

vain to win him back. Later, after various confer- 
ences, he seems to have been restored to fellowship; 
for in 1757 his name appears among those who were 
dismissed for differences in doctrine. But he never 
joined the Baptists, because he opposed close com- 
munion. 

In 1752 Zerviah Lamb withdrew from the com- 
munion of the Separates because she ' 'declared her 
belief that infant baptism or sprinkling was nothing 
but a tradition of men." In 1755 Daniel Whipple, 
who had joined the Preston church in 1751, "asked 
to be dismissed from the church because it held to 
the doctrine and practice of infant baptism." Sam- 
uel Claslie and his wife held to "what they called 
believer's baptism, viz. : that baptism was not 
baptism if administered before faith, and that no re- 
ligious covenant obligation is any obligation, or 
ought to be looked upon as binding, if made before 
conversion and faith; which principles y e church 
looked upon as corrupt." Failing to reconcile these 
differences, the church, in 1757, "by a testimonial let- 
ter to all the disaffected members," dissolved its 
covenant relations with them. There were nine 
who departed and embraced "y e Baptist principles of 
baptism." The testimonial addressed to these peo- 
ple, who were separating from the Separates of 
Preston, ends as follows : — 

But now Brethren and Sisters, inasmuch as you 
are gone out from us as afores d we cannot give you 
fellowship, nor dare we bid you Godspeed (as to 



86 The Separates 

the cause of your going) , yet inasmuch as you plead 
conscience, land we would by no means pretend to 
govern any man's conscience, for God and his word 
only are Lord of y e conscience; therefore we leave 
you to stand or fall to* your own master. And we 
look upon ourselves as discharged from our special 
w^tfch over you, and the visible covenant relations 
dissolved between us and you. 

This transaction sheds light not only upon the 
methods of discipline of the Separates, but also their 
loyalty to the tenets which they held to be essential. 
For in spite of the defection, the church still con- 
sistently followed the practice of infant baptism, and 
adhered to the method of sprinkling as a Scriptural 
method of administering the rite. Three hundred 
and sixty-two children were baptized in the pale of 
the Preston Separate Church. This may be taken 
as an example of the views and practice of the whole 
Separate body. 

The Separates and Baptists agreed on all poinfts 
of doctrine, worship and discipline, save the mode 
and subjects of Baptism. For a time this was no 
bar to fellowship. But the agreement was of short 
duration. The Baptists were unwilling to com- 
mune with those whom they considered unbaptized. 
The Separates, who held the Abrahamic covenant 
as the foundation of their faith, would not rebaptize 
those who were sprinkled in infancy. A council was 
held to reconcile these differences. Certain agree- 
ments and concessions were made. But some of 
the churches refused to ratify the action of their eld- 



Their Doctrines 87 

ers, and what bade fair to be a harmonious union 
ended in failure. The whole matter came up again 
at the ordination of Oliver Prentice over the North 
Stonington Separate church, May 22, 1752. Solo- 
mon Paine had assisted at the ordination of Stephen 
Babcock at Westerly. But at North Stonington 
Mr. Babcock refused to act with Solomon Paine, be- 
cause in Mr. Babcock's view, he was not baptized. 
The next year Paine and Babcock called a general 
meeting of Separate and Baptist churches to effect 
a gospel settlement of the differences. "Twenty- 
four churches in Connecticut, eight in Massachu- 
setts, seven in Rhode Island, and one on Long Island 
were represented in this notable gathering, May 29, 
1754," says Mr. Browning. The convention sat 
three days. Reconciliation failed. The alliance of 
Separates and Baptists, as religious bodies, was at an 
end. Individuals left the former to join the latter. 
But no church of the former forsook its pedobaptist 
principles. 

Thus the Separate movement was the emphatic 
protest of sincere and earnest souls against what 
they believed to be the corrupt practices of the es- 
tablished churches. They doubtless went to ex- 
tremes. Reactions are liable to. But many of 
them were men and women who were in advance of 
their times in spiritual experiences, and in their 
views of the truth. They could not endure a church 
order which made no distinction between the regen- 
erate and the unregenerate. They began to fight 



v " ; '.':"■; %%$ . 

88 ..^ ;« The Separates 

^>*he batti&between justification by faith, and by good 
works. ^ Their protest against practices which 
brought Spiritual death into the church came none 
too soon.' *"V They were often violent in their speech 
against those whom they believed to be in error. 
But they were in dead earnest, and such earnestness 
is not always cool. They overdid things. Bult 
they felt, as a fire burning in their bones, that things 
were being grossly and notoriously underdone. Nor 
can it be said that they had no reason for this con- 
viction. 



IV 

THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND EX- 
TRAVAGANCES 

That the Separate movement was attended by 
great excesses and extravagances, goes without 
saying. These were a sign of weakness and not of 
power. They betrayed a total lack of that balance 
and poise which are essential to give permanency and 
weight to a movement. Their disposition was to 
make religion consist in emotions, in outcries, in 
bodily agitations, in great fears and excessive joys, 
in zeal and talk. They claimed that the power of 
godliness lay in such outcries, and that bodily mo- 
tions were the outward manifestation of the inward 
spirit, and that where the former were lacking, the 
latter did not exist. They insisted that to repress 
these outward tokens was to grieve the Spirit. They 
also claimed the right denied them by the established 
churches, to exercise their gifts in public, as the 
Spirit moved them, whether by praying, exhorting, 
expounding or preaching, as they felt impressed to 
do. This was one of the reasons stated by the Pres- 
ton church for coming out from ithe established 
church in town. They preferred to hear their own 
exhorters rather than the regular ministers, and de- 
clared that more souls were converted under the ex- 
hortations of the former than under the preaching of 

89 



90 The Separates 

the latter. They even went so far as to affirm that 
men and women who did not have such experiences 
as they professed to have, had not been converted. 
It was declared of such men as Eliphalet Adams of 
New London, and David JewetJt of the North Par- 
ish, New London, whose godliness was proverbial 
throughout the county, that they had never been con- 
verted, because they had none of these ecstasies 
which the Separates declared 'to be essential to con- 
version. If they did not feel a minister's preaching, 
.as they expressed it, they declared that he was un- 
converted; or that he was legal and dead, and did 
not preach Christ with power. They would hear 
none of the standing ministers, except "such as they 
called converted, lively, powerful preachers." By 
these they meant those preachers who, like White- 
field, were deeply emotional, and aroused corre- 
sponding emotions in their hearers. They paid 
great attention to trances and visions, in which some 
of them would lie for hours. On coming to them- 
selves they would have wonderful things to relate; 
declaring that they had seen the future world and 
that certain persons, if dead, were in heaven or hell; 
and that certain others, who were still alive, were 
going to the one place or the other. 

Two men were associated with this movement at 
its inception in New London, whose relation to it 
was such that they demand special mention. They 
were Rev. James Davenport of Southold, L. I., and 
Rev. Timothy Allen of West Haven. The latter 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 91 

was pastor of the regular church in West Haven. 
He was an able and zealous preacher. His Calvin- 
ism was unimpeachable. But his consociation was 
displeased with some of his imprudences, as they 
termed them, and deposed him from the ministry. 
The immediate cause of this action was that he was 
alleged to have compared the Bible to an old al- 
manac. But the head and front of his offending 
was that* he had entered actively inlto the Great 
Awakening. For he offered ample apology for his 
unguarded remark, but without avail. What he 
actually did say was, that "the reading of the Holy 
Scriptures without the concurring influence and 
operation of the Holy Spirit will no more convert a 
sinner than the reading of an old Almanack." 
Though it was true that no external means would 
convert a sinner, yet Mr. Allen admitted that the 
manner of expression w^as wrong, and so confessed 
to the consociation. But they refused to listen. 
His dismission followed. The council which per- 
formed this deed boasted that it had blown out one 
"new light," and that they would blow them all out. 
He came to New London to take charge of the Sep- 
arate movement in 1742. For Mr. Hempstead says 
in his diary, July 10, 1742, "I was at Mr. Miller's 
with the Rest of the Authority [Mr. Hempstead was 
justice of the peace] to speak with Mr. Allen, a Sus- 
pended minister who is come here from N Haven, 
West Side and sets up to preach in private houses." 
This was against the law, but in New London the 



92 The Separates 

Separates obtained the privilege of holding such 
services from the County Court, and were not mo- 
lested. Mr. Allen remained about a year in New 
London. He resided in a house, still standing in 
1902, fitted up for the purpose, and known as the 
Shepherd's Tent. He kept a school for the initiates 
in the upper part, where young men were trained 
for the Separate ministry. After a brief service he 
left town, and ultimately reentered the Congrega- 
tional ministry, and served the church in Ashford 
from October, 1757, to January, 1764, and after- 
wards churches in Massachusetts, until he died in 
1806, at the age of over eighty years, and after a 
ministry of sixty-eight years. 

James Davenport, who was the founder of the 
Separate church in New London, was the great- 
grandson of the founder of the New Haven colony. 
He was pastor of a church in Southold, Long Island. 
Whitefield had been preaching in various places in 
New England and elsewhere. A profound inter- 
est in spiritual things was awakened. Reports of 
his labors reached the ears of Davenport. He 
visited the great evangelist, who received him warm- 
ly, and afterwards expressed a very high regard for 
his abilities and personal character. Rev. Andrew 
Croswell, in a pamphlet prepared in Davenport's de- 
fence said, "Mr. Whitefield declared in conversa- 
tion, that he never knew one keep so close walk with 
God as Mr. Davenport." Others concurred in this 
view, as for example, Gilbert Tennent, Parsons of 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 93 

Lyme, and Owen of Groton. Mr. Owen said that 
"the idea he had of the apostles themselves scarcely- 
exceeded what he saw in Mr. Davenport." Mr. 
Croswell said that there was not a minister in all 
Connecticut, zealously affected in the cause of the 
kingdom of God, who would not be inclined to re- 
ceive Mr. Davenport "almost as if he was an angel 
from heaven." 

These extravagant statements do not express the 
view which a majority of the clergymen of Connecti- 
cut held about Mr. Davenport. Mr. Adams of New 
London, Mr. Fitch of Stonington, Mr. Jewett of the 
North Parish and others, had reason to hold very dif- 
ferent opinions. Yet the fact is that Davenport 
was a man of piety, of strong religious sentiments, 
of a good degree of ability and persuasive in his pul- 
pit efforlts. During the four or five years of 
his most erratic conduct, he seemed to be swept off 
his feet, and to be under the stress of a misguided 
and unrestrained religious enthusiasm, which bor- 
dered closely on insanity, and led him into those ex- 
cesses for which he afterwards made due acknowl- 
edgment. 

His strange, career began in his own parish of 
Southold, L. I. He gathered his people together at 
his lodgings, after his visit to Whitefield, and ad- 
dressed them for almost twenty-four hours together. 
It is not unlikely, says Tracy, that those physical 
conditions had begun, at that time, which tempora- 
rily affected his soundness of mind. He believed that 



94 The Separates 

many in his church were unconverted, and set him- 
self up as judge of regenerate and unregenerate 
character. Accordingly he made distinctions, ad- 
dressing those whom he considered regenerate, as 
"brother," and the others as "neighbor." Soon he 
forbade the "neighbors" to come to the Lord's 
table. This created no small stir among his people. 
Not long after he commenced his itinerancies. 
July 1 8, 1 74 1, he came to New London, and held 
meetings in the meeting-house in the evening. Mr. 
Joshua Hempstead gives in his diary the following 
description of the scene at Davenport's first appear- 
ance in that place : — 

Divers women were terrified and cried out exceed- 
ingly. When Mr. Davenport had dismissed the 
congregation some went out, others stayed. He 
then went into the broad alley, which was much 
crowded, and there screamed out, "Come to Christ! 
Come to Christ! Come away! Come away!" 
Then he went into the third pew on the women's side 
and kept there, sometimes singing, sometimes pray- 
ing; he and companions all taking their turn, and 
the women fainting and in hysterics. This con- 
tinued till ten o'clock at night, and then he went off 
singing through the streets. 

Similar scenes were enacted in the North Parish, 
in Stonington and in Groton. In Stonington it is 
said that about one hundred were struck under con- 
viction by his first sermon. In Groton, Hempstead 
tells us that immense audiences waited on his preach- 
ing. "About 6o were wounded; many strong men 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 95 

as well as others." Wherever he went he de- 
nounced, as unconverted, not only professing 
Christians, but clergymen held in high esteem for 
their piety, such as Mr. Adams of New London, Mr. 
Eells of Stonington, Mr. Jewett of the North Parish 
in New London. In Stonington his attacks upon 
Mr. Eells were so unreasonable that the people were 
indignant, and his congregations soon left him. 
Tracy says, "Among those whom he condemned 
was the venerable Eliphalet Adams of New London, 
Connecticut, whose faithful labors had been the prin- 
cipal means of preserving the flame of piety in that 
region from extinction, and under whom there had 
been a happy revival in 1721, the period of deepest 
darkness in New England. Here his influence in 
alienations and divisions is said to have been pecul- 
iarly unhappy, though no particulars are given ; and 
the report of the injustice done to a man so exten- 
sively known and revered, and the injury done to his 
people, produced a deep sensation throughout the 
country." Reference is here made to the defection 
from Mr. Adams' church which Davenport was in- 
strumental in causing. Particulars will be given 
when we speak of the constituting of the Separate 
church in New London. The same year he went to 
New Haven, in September, and preached in the 
church of Mr. Noyes, at the latter's invitation, un- 
til he called the pastor an unconverted man, when 
he was excluded from the pulpit. 

Mr. Davenport's proceedings were so gross and 



96 The Separates 

disturbing to the peace, that complaint was entered 
against him to the colonial legislature in May, 1742. 
After due trial it was decided that "the behavior, 
conduct and doctrines advanced by the said James 
Davenport do, and have a natural tendency to, dis- 
turb and destroy the peace and order of this govern- 
ment. Yet it further appears to this Assembly, 
that the said Davenport is under influence of enthu- 
siastical impressions and impulses, and thereby dis- 
turbed in the rational faculties of his mind, and 
therefore to be pitied and compassionated, and not 
to be treated as otherwise he might be." It was 
therefore ordered that he be sent home to Southold. 
On hearing the decision he said, "Though I must go, 
I hope Christ will not, but will tarry and carry on 
his work in this government, in spite of all the pow- 
er and malice of earth and faelL" About four 
o'clock in the afternoon, on the third day of June, a 
sheriff with two files of men, armed with muskets, 
conducted him to the banks of the Connecticut in 
Hartford, and put him on board a vessel whose 
owner agreed to carry him to his home. 

On the 29th of June he was in Boston. Here his 
conduct soon brought him under censure of the as- 
sociation of ministers in that city, most of whom he 
had declared to be unconverted. This body drew 
up a "Declaration with regard to Rev. Mr. James 
Davenport and his conduct." This was signed by 
the ministers of Boston, and published on the first 
of July, 1742. He was consequently excluded from 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 97 

the pulpits of Boston; whereupon he repaired to 
the Common, and preached to decreasing audiences. 
Here and at Copp's Hill the disturbances complained 
of were repeated. All the time he was in Boston 
he was in trouble because of his violent eccentrici- 
ties. Matters came to such a pass that the grand 
jury took the case up. One of the witnesses testi- 
fied that he heard Davenport say, "Good Lord, I will 
not mince the matter any longer with thee; for thou 
knowest that I know that most of the ministers of 
Whe Town of Boston and of the country are uncon- 
verted, and are leading their people blindfold to 
hell." The grand jury set forth in their present- 
ment, August 19, 1742, that: — 

One James Davenport of Southold — under 
pretence of praying, preaching, exhorting, at di- 
vers places in the towns of Boston and Dorchester, 
and at divers times in July last and August current — 
did— in the hearing of great numbers of the sub- 
jects of our Lord the King, maliciously publish, 
and with loud voice utter and declare many slander- 
ous and railing speeches against the godly and faith- 
ful ministers of this province, but more particularly 
against the ministers of the gospel in the town of 
Boston aforesaid — viz. : that the greatest part of said 
ministers were carnal and unconverted men; that 
they knew nothing of Jesus Christ, and that they 
were leading their people blindfold, down to hell, and 
that they were destroying and murdering souls by 
thousands; the said James Davenport, at the same 
time, advising their hearers to withdraw from said 
ministers, and not to hear them preach; by means 



98 The Separates 

whereof, great numbers of people have withdrawn 
from the public worship of God and the assemblies 
by law required." 

This presentment of the grand jury was sustained 
by twenty-one out of twenty-three jurors. One of 
the two who dissented was an ignorant exhorter; the 
other was a Quaker whose conscience would not let 
him vote on such matters. The finding of the jury 
was issued Thursday. 

On Saturday, August 21, Mr. Davenport was 
arrested, and, on refusing offered bail, he was 
committed for trial. On Tuesday, August 24, he 
was tried. Several clergymen addressed a 
ndte to the court, asking that no severity 
should be used on their account, but that 
the matter should be treated with all the 
leniency consistent with justice and the pub- 
lic peace. The court decided, "that the said James 
Davenport uttered the words laid in this present- 
ment, except these words, 'that they (viz., the min- 
isters) knew nothing of Jesus Christ;' and that, at 
the time when he uttered 'these words, he was non 
compos mentis, and therefore that the said James 
Davenport is not guilty." 

After this he seems to have returned to Southold, 
and spent the winter of 1742 and 1743 with his 
people. October 7, 1742, a council met at Southold 
which severely censured him for his irregular ab- 
sences from his church. In the latter part of the win- 
ter Mr. Hempstead was in Southold, on a visit to his 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 99 

son, Robert. He went to hear Mr. Davenport 
preach February 27, 1743, and on that date made 
this entry in his diary : — 

I went to town to hear Mr. Davenport, but it was 
scarcely worth the hearing, — the praying was with- 
out form or Comliness. It was difficult to distin- 
guish between his praying and preaching, for it 
was all a meer confused medley. he had no text 
nor Bible visible, no Doctrines, no uses, nor Im- 
provement, nor anything else that was Regular 
forenoon nor afternoon, and the last Sabbath be- 
fore by Report was of y e same piece tho not on the 
same subject. for fthen it was the hand of the Lord 
is upon me Over and over many times. then leave 
off and begin again the Same words verbatim. 
Now it was (in addition to telling of his own Reve- 
lation and others Concerning the Shepherd's Tent 
[in New London] and other such things) he called 
the people to sing a new song &c. forevermore 30 
or 40 times Immediately following as fast as one 
word could follow after another 30 or 40 times or 
more and y n Something else and then over with it 
again. I can't relate the Inconsistence of it. 

This seems to have been at the climax of Mr. 
Davenport's erratic course. For on Wednesday, the 
second day of March following he came to New 
London, and on the next Sabbath, March 6, 
he organized the Separates who had seceded from 
Mr. Adams' church into a society. They had held 
meetings about a year. Davenport said that he had 
come to deliver a message from God with a view 
to purify the company of Separates from certain 

l LcfC. 



ioo The Separates 

evils which he declared had crept in among them. 
He preached one of his fervid, zealous sermons, in 
which he dwelt with great emphasis upon the need 
of a pure church. In order to have such a church 
it would be necessary to destroy and burn every idol 
of whatever sort. He denounced certain religious 
books which had been read as spiritual guides, and 
were regarded as standards of faith, but which he 
declared contained false and hurtful doctrines. 
Among the condemned books, says Tracy, "were 
Beveridge, Flavel, Drs. Increase Mather, Colman, 
and Sewall, and that fervid revivalist, Jonathan 
Parsons of Lyme. ,, He called upon those who were 
to be constituted into a church, to renounce all such 
idolatry. It was proposed that each, with his idol, 
whether of books, or jewels, or clothing, should re- 
pair to a certain place and make a bonfire of itihe 
whole collection, and utterly consume them. The 
people responded with alacrity, and there were 
brought to his room, so that he might, by solemn 
decree, consign them to the flames, a great collec- 
tion of books, sermons, wigs, cloaks, breeches, 
hoods, gowns, garments of various sorts, jewels, 
and similar articles which those who brought them 
valued. When all was ready they repaired to the 
place agreed upon. Dr. Hallam, in his x\nnals of 
Saint James, identifies the spot as follows : "The 
wretched scene was exhibited in front of Mr. Chris- 
tophers', at the head of what is now Hallam Street." 
The articles brought were thrown together in a pile, 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 101 

and set on fire and consumed. Mr. Trumbull gives 
the following account of this strange proceeding : 

"In New London they carried it [their enthu- 
siasm] to such a degree, that they made a large fire 
to burn their books, clothes, ornaments, which they 
called their idols; and which they now determined 
to forsake and utterly put away. This imaginary 
work of piety and self-denial they undertook on the 
Lord's Day, and brought their clothes, books, neck- 
laces and jewels together in the main street. They 
began with burning their erroneous books; drop- 
ping them one after another into the fire, pronounc- 
ing these words, 'If the author of this book died in 
the same sentiments and faith in which he wrote it, 
as the smoke of this pile ascends, so the smoke of 
his torment will ascend forever and ever. Hal- 
lelujah. Amen.' But they were prevented from 
burning their clothes and jewels. John Lee, of 
Lyme, (told them his idols were his wife and chil- 
dren, and that he could not burn them; it would 
be contrary to the laws of God and man; that it 
was impossible to destroy idolatry without a change 
of heart, and of the affection." 

This sftrange constitution of the Separate church 
in New London seems to have sounded the knell of 
its early dissolution. Mr. Allen left soon after, and 
they were unable to agree upon his successor. The 
burning of books, whose authors were esteemed and 
noted for piety, was regarded as almost sacrilegious. 
The strange performance seems to have startled the 



102 The Separates 

"New Lights" themselves, and to have brought 
them to a more rational mood. From this on they 
were guided by more sober sense and discretion. 
Some, at least, of the leaders returned to the church 
from which they came out. Others joined the 
Baptists. March 30, 1743, twenty- four days af- 
ter the bonfire, some of those who took part in the 
scenes were tried for profanation of the Sabbath, 
and were fined "five shillings each and the coslfc of 
prosecution." * 

The burning of the books, and other articles, in the 
middle of Main street in New London, seems to have 
marked the climax of Mr. Davenport's erratic ca- 
reer; for in the following summer, 1744, he came 
to himself. In July of 'that year he published re- 
tractions which he sent to Rev. Solomon Williams of 
Lebanon, Conn., and to Rev. Mr. Prince of Boston, 
for publication. Mr. Williams said, in a letter ac- 
companying the document, "He is full and free in it, 
and seems to be deeply sensible of his miscarriages 
and misconduct in those particulars, and very de- 
sirous to do all he possibly can to retrieve the dis- 
honor which he has done to religion, and the in- 
justice to many ministers of the gospel." The "Re- 
tractions," are a clear, candid, straightforward ac- 
knowledgment of error "in the various particulars 
in which he had offended." Some of the particu- 
lars mentioned were affirming that ministers were 
unconverted, and advising and causing separations. 
He adds, "And here I would ask the forgiveness 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 103 

of those ministers whom I have injured in both these 
articles. " He further deplores, "following impulses 
or impressions, as a rule of conduct" and "great stiff- 
ness in retaining these aforesaid errors a great 
while/' The man was sincere, but unbalanced. 
Twice he was judged insane. He was a useful man, 
and, except during the four or five years when he 
was beside himself, his life was passed in honor and 
peace. 

The scenes just described shed some light upon 
the tendency of these people to be carried away 
with enthusiasm. They were influenced more by 
impressions than by calm and clear views of the 
truth. Trumbull says, "They laid great weight 
upon their lively imaginations, or views of an out- 
ward Christ, or of Christ without them, whether 
they had a view of him in heaven, on a throne sur- 
rounded by adoring angels, or on a cross, suffering, 
bleeding, dying, and the like. Some looked on this 
as a precious, saving discovery of Christ." 

Some of their extravagances were of a divisive 
character, and were carried to hurtful extremes. Dr. 
Walker says, "Something more than indiscretion 
characterized utterances whose direct influence was 
to alienate congregations from their pastors, and to 
stimulate and encourage whatever was extravagant 
in the emotions of their hearers." Their preaching 
was of the hortatory style, and indulged in imagery 
borrowed from the Bible. It took on a kind of 
apocalyptic strain, and was calculated to arouse the 



104 The Separates 

emotions; so that there was naturally more or less 
of excitement in their religious experiences. There 
can be no doubt about the sincerity of the motives 
which actuated these people. It was an endeavor 
to reach a more fervid type of piety. Persuaded, 
and often too justly, of the secularized character of 
the churches to which they had belonged, they took 
the decisive step, separated themselves and formed 
churches which would represent their own convic- 
tions and religious experience. The cry that rang 
through the eastern part of the colony was, "Come 
out from among them and be ye separate ;" "come 
out from these dead and corrupted churches; from 
the abominable tyranny of those unchristian and un- 
godly Civil Constitutions, and rejoice in the liberty 
wherewith Christ has made us free." 

In keeping with the original motive behind the 
Separatist movement, they were very strict in their 
discipline and exercised great caution in admitting 
members to their fellowship and communion. Here 
they often overshot the mark. A censorious spirit 
and mutual criticism, together with extravagance in 
church discipline sometimes destroyed the peace of 
their churches. Mr. Hempstead gives the follow- 
ing case which occurred in New London, and illus- 
trates what we mean. February 2, 1743, he made 
the following entry in his diary : — 

Nath. Williams of Stonington lodged here. he 
went over in the evening to Mr. Hills's alias alien's, 
at the house that was Samuel Harris's (now the 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 105 

Shepherd's tent) and there Related his Christian 
Experiences in order to have their approbation, be- 
hold the Quite Contrary, for they upon examina- 
tion, find him yet in an unconverted estate, and he 
confesses the justice of their Judgement, and says 
that he hath judged others Divers times, and altho 
he is unwilling to believe it, yet like others he is 
forced to bear it. 

The practice of relating one's experience, upon en- 
tering the church, which the standing churches, un- 
der the Half- Way Covenant, had pretty generally 
abandoned, the Separates insisted on, and contin- 
ued, as a necessary safeguard against the admission 
of unconverted persons into their fellowship. Be- 
lieving, as they did, that the power of discerning re- 
generate character was given to the people of God 
for their habitual guidance and defence, they insisted 
the more strenuously upon these narrations of expe- 
rience of renewing grace. Trumbull says, "As to 
admission of persons to their communion and church 
discipline, they were as strict as the standing 
churches, at that time, if not more so. They as 
much insisted on sanctification and a holy life that 
men might be saved, as did the standing ministers 
and churches." The fact is that they were far more 
strict in these particulars. Indeed, as the incident of 
Mr. Williams, quoted above, and councils called to 
adjust quarrels between members who once infallibly 
knew each other to be saints, show, their strictness 
in judging often became censoriousness of spirit. 

Another of the peculiarities of these people, and 



106 The Separates 

one which robbed their movement of the influence 
and power which it might have had, was their belief 
that the guidance of the Holy Spirit superseded the 
need of "book learning," or careful preparation to 
preach the Word. The movement, therefore, natu- 
rally fell into the hands of ignorant and well-nigh il- 
literate leaders. Trumbull says, "Because min- 
isters studied their sermons, they called their exer- 
cises, preaching out of the head, and declared that 
they could not be edified by it. They maintained 
that there was no need of anything more than com- 
mon learning, to qualify men for the ministry; that 
if a man had the Spirit of God, it was no matter 
whether he had any learning at all." The Sepa- 
rates of North Stonington, as we shall see, claimed 
to have received revelation of things not revealed in 
the Scriptures. In less than a year, by special reve- 
lation, they chose their first minister, ordained him, 
silenced and cast him out of the church, and gave 
him over to Satan. When Paul Parke of Preston 
was ordained, "He was solemnly charged not to pre- 
meditate or think beforehand what he should speak 
to the people ; but to speak as the Spirit should give 
him utterance." Consequently they had a zeal, not 
tempered with knowledge, which led them off into 
many extravagances of ignorance. 

However, they did, in at least one instance, and 
probably in others, seek to establish schools for the 
training of young men for their ministry. The 
"Shepherd's Tent," in New London, to which refer- 



Their Characteristics and Extravagances 107 

ence has already been made, was both a dwelling for 
Rev. Timothy Allen during his brief sojourn in New 
London, and a school for the instruction of Separate 
preachers. Other similar attempts seem to have 
been planned, if they were not actually undertaken. 
But, as we shall see, the legislature, with its custom- 
ary promptness, put an end to all such plans of the 
Separates, which looked toward a more liberal edu- 
cation, by an act passed in October, 1742, which for- 
bade the establishment of such schools without per- 
mission of the Assembly; which the Assembly was 
careful not to give. 

Nevertheless, some of their teachers were of no 
mean order, and held their places for many years. 
Elisha Paine, one of their number, was a man of su- 
perior education and sound judgment — qualities 
which enabled him to be, in some measure, a leader 
among them, and to control the contending elements. 
The Windham County Association of ministers ex- 
amined him, and gave their opinion "that he was 
qualified, and that it was his duty to preach the Gos- 
pel." But he refused to subscribe to the Saybrook 
Platform, and was therefore debarred by law from 
preaching. But he preached and was put in jail for 
doing what the Windham County Association had 
said he was qualified to do and ought to do. He 
was looked up to by the Separates as their Moses. 
After suffering divers persecutions for his faith, he 
accepted a call to a Separate church at Bridgehamp- 
ton, L. I., and passed there the evening of his days 
ministering to their spiritual needs. 



108 The Separates 

Paul Parke was pastor of the Preston Separate 
church from June 18, 1747 till he died in 1802, 
and with him the Preston Separate Church; al- 
though it continued a struggling existence till 18 17. 
The last entry on its records was made July 
27 of that year. Mr, Parke was one of 
the half-century ministers of Connecticut. John 
Palmer of Brunswick preached for fifty-eight years. 
Rev. David Rowland of Plainfteld, whose position 
as pastor of the established church was such as to 
make him obnoxious to the Separates, said of the 
minisiter of the Separate church in that town, Rev. 
Mr. Stevens, that he was "a very clear and power- 
ful preacher of the gospel." This is unbiased testi- 
mony. But these were the exceptions. Igno- 
rance, coupled with the belief that they could judge 
unerringly of the Christian character of others, led 
to wrong judgments, which often ended in bitter 
controversies which councils were called to settle. 
The peace of God that passeth understanding did 
not always keep their minds and hearts. Councils 
called to assist in settling difficulties in local churches 
are proof that the ideal church, which they hoped 
to realize when they withdrew from the standing 
churches, was ever an eluding ignis fatuus. 



V 

THEIR PERSECUTIONS 

The peculiar characteristics of the Separates 
exposed them to persecution. For their views led 
them to pursue courses which were directly con- 
trary to the laws of the colony. Baptists, Episco- 
palians and Quakers were allowed the benefit of the 
Act of Toleration. But the legislature declared 
that "those commonly called Presbyterians or Con- 
gregationalists should not take the benefit of these 
Acts ; and only such persons as had any distinguish- 
ing character by which they might be known from 
Presbyterians or Congregationalists, and from 
Consociated churches, might expect indulgence." 
The Separates claimed to be Congregationalists, and 
were made to feel the keen edge of the law. 

Their sitory is one of opposition, hardship and per- 
secution paralleled, in these later times, only by the 
persecutions of the Separatists of the early part of 
the seventeenth century in England. At every point 
they found themselves confronting a law which had 
been framed to oppose them, so that they could not 
make a move without incurring its penalty. We 
have spoken of their attempt to establish schools in 
order to supply their churches with an educated min- 
istry. Certainly this was a laudable purpose, and 
one to be encouraged by the law. If it had been 

109 



no The Separates 

carried out it probably in time would have eliminated 
from the movement its fatal element of ignorance. 
Bult in 1742 the legislature met this purpose with 
"An act relating to and for the better regulating 
schools of learning." It was a blow aimed directly 
at the efforts of the Separates tto provide a certain 
amount of education for their preachers. It for- 
bade the establishment of such a school or academy 
for the education of young persons, without per- 
mission of the Assembly, under severe penalties; a 
permission certain not to be granted to the Separates. 
If such a school were established, the officers were to 
make inspection and proceed with such scholars and 
teachers according to the law relating to transient 
persons. The same act provided that no person 
who had not graduated at some Protestant college 
should take the benefit of the laws of government 
respecting the settlement and estate of ministers. 
That is, there must be an educated ministry. But the 
legislature would not allow the Separates to estab- 
lish schools for that purpose. Their young people 
were not allowed in the schools sanctioned by the es- 
tablished churches unless they ceased to be Sepa- 
rates. Every effort which they put forth to secure 
for their preachers even a modicum of education, was 
headed off by the civil authorities. The only course 
left open to them was, either to defy the law, or be 
content with an uneducated ministry. 

To the government of the Colony of Connecticut 
the New Lights were simply outlaws, excluded f mm 



Their Persecutions in 

the privileges granted to other dissenting bodies., 
They were rebels against the standing order. The 
severest measures were therefore taken against them, 
and were executed with unsparing vigor ; the officers 
of the law forgetting that they were descended from 
men who had suffered like persecutions at the hands 
of another Establishment in England. Both the leg- 
islature and the clergy joined hands as had been 
done more than a hundred years before in England, 
in efforts to suppress zealous preachers, as if to pre- 
sent the truth directly to men's consciences were a 
crime. Trumbull says, "Experimental religion, 

and zeal and engagedness in preaching, and in serv- 
ing God were termed enthusiasm." And because 
of the errors which were developed, and because of 
unreasoning opposition these were called the work 
of the devil. The clergy persuaded the legislature 
to brand itinerating, or preaching in other than the 
appointed places or by any but regularly ordained 
preachers, or in the parish of another minister with- 
out his consent, a misdemeanor, liable to punishment. 
Men were suspended from the communion of the 
regular churches, sometimes by vote of the church, 
often by the act of the minister alone who did not 
take the trouble to consult the church, because the 
offending members had been to hear some of the zeal- 
ous preachers. David Brainerd was expelled from 
Yale college for the alleged crime of casting reflec- 
tions on the religious character of his tutor, 
Chauncey Whittlesey, and for attending a Separate 



U2 The Separates 

meeting. Justices of the peace, and other officers 
of the law, who were known to be "New Lights/' or 
favorable to them, were summarily deprived of their 
offices. Men of substance and character, who were 
elected by their townsmen to represent them in the 
legislature, were refused their seats if it were found 
that they were connected with the "rebellious" 
Separates. The clergy excluded from their pulpits 
men to whom, in ordination, they had given the 
right hand of fellowship — men sound in doctrine, 
correct in life, zealous in preaching — because they 
preferred the Cambridge to the Saybrook Platform. 
Men were put in prison and kept there because they 
refused to pay the minister's rate. Often helpless 
women and children were left in destitute circum- 
stances, with no means of support, because the hus- 
band and father had been hurried off to jail to suffer 
the penalty for failing to pay the minister's rate. 
Frequently a poor man's only cow, or the winter's 
supply of food, was taken by the merciless collector, 
and the family of young children were left to suffer 
hunger and cold. Elisha Paine, the most educated 
and cultivated of the Separate preachers, removed to 
Long Island. On returning, in mid-winter, for his 
goods and stock, he was seized and put in confine- 
ment for months in Windham county jail because 
he had not paid the rates due the minister of the 
established church in Canterbury. In Mil ford, Rev. 
Samuel Whittlesey w r as settled over the regular 
church, against the protest of a large part of the 



Their Persecutions 113 

members. They withdrew, and called themselves 
Presbyterians. They sent to New Jersey for Rev. 
Samuel Finley to become their minister. This was 
against the law. Several times he was arrested and 
transported from the colony as a vagrant. The 
character of the man may be judged from the fact 
that he was afterwards president of Princeton Col- 
lege. For twelve years the people who separated 
from Mr. Whittlesey's church were compelled to 
pay rates to him, and for repairs on the meeting- 
house which they never entered. "The Association 
of New Haven County took up the matter, and for- 
mally resolved that no member of the Presbytery of 
New Brunsw r ick should be admitted into any of their 
pulpits, till satisfaction had been made for sending 
Mr. Finley to preach within their bounds. ,, The 
principal cause of this summary proceeding against 
Mr. Finley significantly points out the spiritual state 
in which the churches of New Haven Association 
were. It was said that his preaching was "greatly 
disquieting and disturbed the people." One can- 
not but call to mind the commotion which Paul's 
preaching caused at Thessalonica, among the Jews 
of the established order. The great apostle was hur- 
ried out of town as a vagrant. Vigorous, direct, 
plain preaching is apt to disquiet and disturb people. 
The high-handed manner in which the 
Separates of Canterbury were treated is a 
most conspicuous illustration of the intolerant, 
bigoted and unreasonable spirit which then 



H4 The Separates 

prevailed in the established churches. But 
one incident will be cited here. The rest of the 
sltory will be told in narrating the organization of 
the Separate church in that place. Mr. Cleaveland 
was a man of prominence and note in that town. As 
a member of the regular church, he opposed the 
settlement of Mr. Cogswell, in 1744. He, with a 
majority of the members, withdrew from the old 
church, and they instituted worship by themselves. 
Mr. Cleaveland had two sons in Yale College. In 
1744, while at home during the summer vacation, 
the sons most naturally attended divine service with 
their father. One of the sons, who was a member 
of the regular church, partook of the Lord's Sup- 
per. On their return to college, they were expelled 
for the crime of attending a Separate meeting with 
their parents. This was done in accordance with a 
vote of the legislature in May, 1742. This action 
was taken November 19, 1744. Three reasons were 
recited for taking it; all of them based upon the 
action of the people in Canterbury to which 
Mr. Cleaveland's sons were not even remotely 
a party. Bu(t) because the rector of the Col- 
lege and the tutors judged that Mr. Cogswell was 
the sufficiently qualified preacher in Canterbury; 
and because they, the faculty, could see no good 
reason why the Separates of Canterbury should re- 
fuse to hear Mr. Cogswell ; and because the faculty 
judged that no one "in any parish or society have 
any right or warrant to appoint any house or place 



Their Persecutions 115 

for worship on the Sabbajth distinct and separate 
from and in opposition to the meeting-house, the 
place appointed by the genera! assembly, and the par- 
ish/' therefore it was judged "by the rector and tfu- 
tors, that the said John and Ebenezer Cleaveland . 
. . in attending upon the preaching of lay exhort- 
ers, as aforesaid, have acted contrary to the rules of 
Itlhe Gospel, and the laws of this Colony, and the 
college, and thalt the said Cleavelands shall be pub- 
licly admonished for their faults; and if they shall 
continue to justify themselves, and refuse to make 
acknowledgement', they shall be expelled." In about 
a week John Cleaveland presented a reply in 
which he said that he did not know that 
he was transgressing any law of God, of the 
colony, or of the college, and he begged 
that his ignorance might be accepted as his 
apology. But this did not suffice. The faculty could 
see nothing in his apology but justification of his 
wrong-doing. The law of the college provided 
"that no scholar upon the Lord's day, or another 
day, under pretence of religion, shall go to any pub- 
lic or private meeting, not established or allowed 
by public authority, or approved by the president, 
under penalty of a fine, confession, public admoni- 
tion, or otherwise according to the state and de- 
merit of the offence." These young men ought to 
have known better, if they did not. Therefore they 
were expelled. If they had noit sinned, the people 
in Canterbury had. The faculty could not make an 



n6 The Separates 

example of the people in Canterbury, but they could 
of the young men. 

The expulsion of these students for their alleged 
offence, created pretty wide and deep indignation. 
Their treatment was considered partial, severe and 
unjust. It was believed by a good many that men 
had a right to worship God in such manner, at such 
times, and in such places, as they pleased. This was 
what the Separates stood for. It was for this right 
that they were persecuted at the instigation of an 
establishment as iron-handed, as merciless, as nar- 
row and as bigoted and cruel as the Puritans and 
Pilgrims of the seventeenth cenJtury encountered in 
England. 

These people took issue with the state at another 
point, and stubbornly maintained it till their view 
gained the day. They denied, and would not submit 
to the right of the civil authorities to tax them for 
the support of the churches whose worship they did 
not attend and whose benefits they did not enjoy. 
They denied the right of the state to exercise juris- 
diction in matters of conscience and of religious 
convictions. Therefore they did not believe in a 
State Church, nor in compulsory taxation for the 
support of any church. In this respect they were 
far in advance of their times. They stedfastly re- 
fused to pay rates for the maintenance of the es- 
tablished churches. In this it must be said that they 
followed the example of the Separatists of the seven- 
teenth cenltury. And, in the treatment which they 



Their Persecutions 117 

visited upon the Separates of Connecticut, the de- 
scendants of those of the seventeenth cenittiry imi- 
tated the men who persecuted their fathers and 
drove them out of England. 

Because they refused to pay the church rates their 
property was often seized and sold under the ham- 
mer, often ruining families and stripping them of 
all their worldly estate. In a letter dated May 13, 
1752, addressed by some of (the Separates to the 
general assembly of the Colony, they say : 

We are of that number who soberly dissent from 
the Church established by Connecticut and though 
we have no design to act in contempt of any lawful 
authority, or to disturb any religious society, but on- 
ly to worship God according to rules he has given us 
in his word in that way now called Separation, yet 
have we suffered the loss of much of our goods, par- 
ticularly because we could not in conscience pay 
minister's rates, it appearing to us very contrary 
to the way that the Lord hath ordained even the 
present way in which the ministry are maintained — 
Poor men's estates taken away and sold for less than 
a quarter of their value, and no overplus returned, 
as hath been the case of your Honor's poor inform- 
ers; yea, poor men's cows taken away when they 
had but one for the support of their families, and 
the children crying for milk and could get none, be- 
cause the collector had taken their cow for minister's 
rates. 

Not only so, but when the property was not suf- 
ficient, men were seized and cast into prison, where 
they were compelled to lie for weeks and often 



n8 The Separates 

mortiths at a time, while their families were left to 
suffer. They were not far wrong in saying that it 
could not have been in the mind of God that the 
gospel of peace should be supported by methods so 
cruel, so high-handed and so outrageous. It is said 
of one of these men that, though abundantly able 
to pay the tax, he refused, because he insisted that 
it was wrong, and said that he would rot in jail be- 
fore he would violate his own conscience and pay 
the abominated rate. After a time, however, when 
it seemed that he would rot in jail, because neither 
he nor the authorities would yield, his wife paid the 
rate and he was released. The laws enacted and 
executed to suppress Separatism were, Trumbull 
tells us, severe and unprecedented. "There were no 
such laws in any of the other colonies, nor were 
there in Great Briitain. ,, 

After much endurance of the severe and un- 
reasonable execution of the law, compelling all Con- 
gregationalists to accept the Saybrook Platform and 
pay rates to support the stated ministry, or suffer 
the penalty, the Preston church took the lead in ad- 
dressing the colonial legislature to plead for exemp- 
tion and redress. The memorial was as follows : — 

To 'the Honourable y e General Assembly of y e 
Colony of Connecticut to be convened at New Haven 
In s d Colony on the Second ithirsday of October A. 
D. 1 75 1 the Memorial of John Avery and others 
the Subscribers hereunto Humbly Shueth that your 
Memorialists live Some of us within the first, and 



Their Persecutions 119 

some of us within the Second Eccleciastical So- 
cietys In the Town of Preston Some few within the 
Second Society In Groton and Some few within the 
South Society in Norwich and Some In the Second 
Society of Stonington, that we are that one of the 
Very Many Sects of Professors of Christianity that 
are Commonly Called Separates that we Have truly 
and Contientiously Desented and Separated from all 
the Chirches and Religious Societyes within whose 
limits we live That we are Setteled according to the 
Present Establishment of this Government, 
that our Habitations are Generally Compact 
none of us liveing more than 7 or 8 miles 
from the Place of our Public worship most 
of us within Two Miles, that the Number 
of families Is About forty and the Number of Soules 
about 300, of which there are more than fifty Church 
Members all belonging to our Communion and of 
our Profession that we Have at our own Cost Set- 
tled a Minister & bult a Meeting House for Divine 
worship & have long since been Imbodied Into 
Church Estate that Nevertheless we are Compelled 
to pay towards the Support of the Ministry & for 
the bilding of Meeting Houses In these Societyes 
from which we have Respectively Sepperated and 
Desented as aforses d and for our Neglect to Make 
Payment of Such RaJtes we have Many of us been 
Imprisoned others have had their Estates Torn & 
sold to the olmost ruining of some familyes where- 
fore we Intreat the attention of this Honnourable 
Assembly and Pray Your Honnours to Suffer us to 
Say that we always have & for the future most 
Chearfully Shall Contribute our Proportion toards 
the Support of Civil Government & we not only 
Prise & value but Humbly Claim and Chalenge our 



120 The Separates 

Rite In the Immunities of the Present Constitution. 

Our Religion or Principles are no ways Subver- 
sive of Government and we are not only Inclining 
but Engaging to Support It — and their Is no Dif- 
ference between us and other Members of the Com- 
munity but what is Merely Ecclesiastical In which 
Respect also they Differ one from another & the 
whole Christian World no less. 

Our Religious Sentiments and wlay of worship 
No ways affect the State. 

We are as Industerous In our business and as 
Punctual in our Contracts as If we were Anabap- 
tists or Quakers and we Challenge to hold enjoy and 
Improve what Is our own by the Same Rules and 
Laws as all other Denominations of Christians Do. 

And we Suppose their is (In the nature of things) 
no Reason we Should maintain & Support any 
Religion or way of worship but what we our Selves 
Embrace and Propose to receve the advantage of 
and that No body has rite to Impede or Hinder us 
In that way of worship which in our Condenses we 
think Itio be Right for us In all matters Civil we are 
accountible to the State So in all Matters of wor- 
ship we are accountible to him who Is the object 
of It, to whom alone we must stand or fall and on 
these Principles are founded all acts of Toleration. 
Your Memorialists therefore humbly Intreat the In- 
terposition and Protection of this honnourable 
Assembly that your honnours would order and 
Grant that your Memorialists and all such as ad- 
here to or shall be Joined & attend the Publick 
worship with them may for the future be Released 
and Exemted from Paying Taxes for the Bulding 
of Metmghouses or for " the Support of the min- 
istry in any of the Societyes from which we have 



Their Persecutions 121 

Sepperated (within the compas of eight miles from 
the place of Publick worship or Such other Lim- 
mits as your honnours Shall See fit) or that your 
honnours would grant us the Same Ease and 
Liberty as by law is Provided for the Ease of Ana- 
baptists and Quakers or otherwise Grant Such 
Relief as in your wisdom you Shall Judge Just 
and your Memorialists are Ready to Qualify them- 
selves according to the act of Toleration. 

And as In Duty Bound Ever Pray. 

Dated y e 10th Day of September A. D. 1751. 

This document is signed by thirty-three memor- 
ialists, eight of whom were descendants of Thomas 
Park, originally of New London, who was a char- 
ter member, and one of the first deacons of the old 
church in Preston. As we read this document at 
this distance, no good reason appears why the 
legislature should not have granted the prayer of 
the memorialists. By a document dated Septem- 
ber 26, 1 75 1, the sheriff was directed to summon 
the inhabitants of the parishes, or societies named, 
to appear before the General Assembly at New 
Haven, "on the Tuesday Next after S' d thirsday," 
to show, if there were any reason, why the prayer 
of the foregoing memorial should not be granted. 
He was also directed to put "a tru and attested 
Copy" of the memorial into the hand of the Clerk 
of each society named in it. Nothing in the Co- 
lonial Records as published shows whether this 
memorial was presented. If it was it was evidently 
refused and the relief sought was not obtained. 



122 The Separates 

For the memorialists did not come within the limits 
of those who might expeclt indulgence. In Massa- 
chusetts, a hundred years before, the Quakers and 
others suffered for their non-conformity. Now, 
in Connecticut, the 'tables were turned. The 
Quakers and others secured indulgence, while 
Congregationalists, whose chief sin was that they 
took the Cambridge rather than the Saybrook Plat- 
form, suffered severe persecutions, and felt the 
sharp edge of the law, and the sharper edge of 
ecclesiasticism turned againsit them. 

But the Preston Separates had the courage of 
their convictions. They were not to be discour- 
aged by a single denial. So, January 17, 1753, 
another effort of like character was made. For 
the church met to consult "whether we ought not 
to send to our Cyvil Rulers : to Request them to put 
an end (to the oppression : for it is very Greate and 
Many Suffer." A meeting of representatives of the 
various Separate churches was held at Norwich, 
March 21st of the same year. It was the unanimous 
opinion that it was "their Duty to Send first to our 
General Assembly: and if Not Heard to Send to 
England. Y e Cbhs Chose men as overseers to 
Prepare a Memorial according to what was Pur- 
posed to lay before y e assembly Next May : ye over- 
seers were Solomon Paine; Ebenezer Frothing- 
ham (Wethersfield:) Jedediah Hyde: Elexander 
Miller and Paul Parke." A formal memorial was 
accordingly presented to the legislature of the col- 



Their Persecutions 123 

ony in May, signed by the representatives of more 
than twenty Separate churches. In it they de- 

clared that it was against their consciences "that 
ministers salaries be dependent on human laws." 
They further said "we pray for the benefit of the 
Toleration act : we are imprisoned, our property is 
taken, from which burdens we pray to be released." 
Again this most reasonable and just petition was 
denied. The thumb-screws were given an extra 
turn. The persecution went on without relenting. 
The purpose to appeal to the throne was carried 
out. In June, 1754, Solomon Paine and Ebenezer 
Frothingham were chosen messengers to go to Eng- 
land and present the memorial at the Court of 
George II. Paine died in October of that year. 
The mission was delayed. Another fruitless appeal 
was made to the General Assembly of the colony. 
Finally, in 1756, new messengers were appointed 
who took the appeal for toleration to England and 
submitted it to the parliamentary "Committee for the 
Dissenters." The last reference to the matter in the 
records of the Preston church is the following : 

December 29th, 1756. This c^ 1 met by appoint- 
ment — first heard a Proclamation appointing a fast 
in those C h,h that agreed to send to England; a 
petition for liberty &c. by these agenlts : Mr. Bliss 
Willobey, and Mr. Moses Mars — y e . C hh agreed to 
keep this day. 

But the mission failed in great measure. The 
committee, to whom the petition was submitted, 



124 The Separates 

expressed great surprise that the sons of the men 
who had fled from persecution in England should 
have framed a similar and an equally galling yoke 
for dissenters from the established church of 
Connecticut. This was deemed a violation of the 
charter righlts of the colony. It was feared that if 
the petition were presented to the king, the charter 
would be withdrawn. The messengers returned, 
bearing a letter from the chairman of the Parlia- 
mentary committee censuring the colonial govern- 
ment. This, together with the disturbance of the 
French and Indian war, secured a modification of the 
action of the colonial governmenit, so that the 
memorialists did not bring a suit for their rights 
as tohey were advised to do. A petition for exemp- 
tion from paying rates to the old society was first 
accorded to the Separates of South Killingly in 
1755. Thenceforward relief was grudgingly grant- 
ed, until, in 1784, the obnoxious act, making the 
Saybrook Platform obligatory, was repealed. 

But this leniency was too late to save the move- 
ment. Its leaders were gone. Its churches were 
waited. The people were demoralized. A few 
churches struggled on and kept their organized life 
into the nineteenth century. But for the grea't body 
of them the end was a bitter defeat. Their san- 
guine hope for a pure church ended in disappoint- 
ment. They made a heroic stand for a correct 
principle. Their battle was fought for what was 
right. But it soon degenerated into a quarrel with 



Their Persecutions 125 

the tax collector, with /the odds all against them. 
Their conflict deserved a better result, which it 
would have reached if there had been weightier in- 
fluences behind it. Their failure by no means 
proves that their position was wrong. The move- 
ment would have reached farther, and accomplished 
more, if it had been freer from the extravagances 
which attached to it, like barnacles to a ship, and if 
it had had a more intelligent leadership. 

The Connecticut Separates were not always wise 
or broad, biit they were not the lawless men and 
women, defiant of law and order, which their treat- 
ment might lead us to suppose them to have been. 
They simply stood for conscientious convictions, for 
which they could give a reason. They hoped and 
labored for a pure church. Said Dr. Button, of New 
Haven, their "motive was, to say the least, honor- 
able to their Christian zeal and devotion." Their 
worship was called irregular. But it was so only 
because the law, which was a gross violation of 
human rights, chose to call it so. None of the 
Connecticut Separates suffered martyrdom like 
those of a century and a half before in England. 
But they suffered about everything else. If the 
blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, we 
may say that the persecution of the Separates, with 
their simple and free polity, was the germ of that 
New England Congregationalism which is to-day 
our pride. 



VI 

WHERE THEY WERE AND WHAT 
BECAME OF THEM 

The principal scene of this movement was in 
Connecticut, after about 1741. But before this date 
there were not wanting evidences of protest against 
the practice of the Half-Way Covenant in the divi- 
sion of churches over it. The principles of the 
Separates had been in the air for more than three 
quarters of a century when the decisive cleavage 
came. 

One of the earliest instances of protest against 
the practice of the Half-Way Covenant was in 
Bran ford in 1665, sevenlty-five years before the 
real Separate movement, but which was yet of the 
same spirit. After the union of the New Haven 
and Connecticut colonies, under the charter recently 
obtained from Charles, "Mr. Pierson and almost his 
whole church and congregation," says Trumbull, 
"were so displeased that they soon removed into 
Newark, New Jersey. They carried off the records 
of the church and town, and after it had been settled 
about twenty-five years left it almost without inhabi- 
tant. " No pastor was settled in Branford to take 
the place of Mr. Pierson for more than twenty 
years. The reason for this exodus was, ttet, 

126 



Where They Were, etc. 127 

in the Connecticut colony, the Half- Way Covenant 
was approved by the civil authorities, and Mr. Pier- 
son and his people refused to live under such juris- 
diction. 

About 1667 the church in Windsor became divid- 
ed over 'the settlement of a colleague for the pastor, 
Rev. Mr. Warham, who had become advanced in 
years. Hot words passed between the contending 
parties. Matters came to such a pass that permis- 
sion was given by the legislature to the minority to 
form a distinct church. Mr. Benjamin Woodbridge 
was called and settled in 1668. After twelve years 
Mr. Woodbridge was dismissed by order of the 
court, and the church was disbanded to unite with 
the First Church, and thus the breach was healed. 

In 1670 the Second Church in Hartford with- 
drew from the First Church, under the lead of Rev. 
John Whiting. The cause of the separation was a 
difference between the views of Rev. Mr. Haynes 
and Rev. Mr. Whiting' as to the question, who are 
fit subjects for membership in the visible church. 
Mr. Whiting and his followers were zealous for the 
sltrict Congregational way of Hooker and 
others of the early New England clergy, namely, 
"that visible saints are the only fit matter, 
and confederation the only form of a visible church; 
that a competent number of visible saints, (with 
their seed) embodied by a particular covenant, are 
a true, distinct, and entire church; that such a par- 
ticular church, being organized, or having furnished 



128 The Separates 

itself with 'those officers which Christ hath appoint- 
ed, hath all power and privileges of a church be- 
longing to it." The special particulars in which 
the seceders claimed "all power and privileges of 
a church/' were, in admitting and receiving mem- 
bers, in dealing wilth offenders and in administering 
and enjoying within itself "all other ecclesiastical 
ordinances." They also held to the autonomy of the 
local church, to the communion of churches, and to 
the Congregational doctrine of seeking the advice 
of neighboring churches, "in cases of difficulty." 
As Mr. Haynes, the junior pastor, and a majority 
of the First Church of Hartford held to the less 
strict Congregational way, Mr. Whiting, the senior 
pastor, and thirty-one members withdrew amicably 
and formed the Second Church of Hartford. It 
will be noticed that the principles upon which Mr. 
Whiting and his followers withdrew from the 
parent church were similar to those given by the 
Separates seventy-five years later. 

About the same time a controversy over the Half- 
Way Covenant divided the church in Stratford. It 
broke out on the occasion of securing a colleague 
for Rev. Mr. Blackman, the first pastor. A ma- 
jority of the church and town chose Mr. Israel 
Chauncey, son of the President of Harvard Col- 
lege, to be their pastor, and he was ordained, says 
Trumbull, in 1665. A large minority were opposed 
to his ordination, and they chose Mr. Zechariah 
Walker as their pastor, who was ordained in the 



Where They Were, etc. 129 

regular way about 1667 or 1668. Both ministers 
conducted public services in the same house, at dif- 
ferent hours. But it was found thalt two captains 
were too many for one ship. All attempts at re- 
conciliation failed. A Second Church at Stratford 
was organized and maintained till 1672. They were 
at length excluded from the meeting-house and met 
for worship in a private dwelling. Finally a new 
township was granted them, and they were 
authorized to begin a plantation at Pom- 
peraug, now Woodbury. About 1673 the majority 
of the new church removed thither and became the 
First Church of Woodbury. This gave peace to 
Stratford, and the new church walked in harmony 
among themselves and with their sister churches. 

There may have been other cases of separation 
for similar reasons in which new churches were 
formed. But these are the most conspicuous. They 
did not belong to the Separate movement. For there 
was, then, no Saybrook Platform, and no estab- 
lished order. Further, these separations were, for the 
most part, amicably effected. Nor was the sepa- 
rating church compelled to pay taxes for the sup- 
port of the church which it had left. But these 
cases show that the principles and spirit of Separa- 
tion, as we find it in the middle of the eighteenth 
century, were in the air. And these local instances 
of division, as it now appears, were a prophecy oi 
the deeper, wider cleft which would split asunder 
the body of the colonial churches when aroused 



130 The Separates 

and stirred by the mighty power of the Great 
Awakening. 

Elsewhere than in Connecticut, the Separate 
movement gained a foothold, and its churches were 
established. But they were largely fruits of the pro- 
tect of the Separating churches of the colony of 
Connecticut against the loose practices of the 
churches of the regular order. Before we study the 
case at the storm center, let us notice the effects at 
the outermost edges. 

Separate Churches were formed in Rtode 
Island. In 1724-5, as a result of the labors of Sam- 
uel Moody, a celebrated revivalist of York, Maine, 
the First Congregational Church in Providence was 
formed. Sixteen persons constituted its member- 
ship. Its first pastor was Rev. Josiah Cotton, a 
lineal descendant of the famous Rev. John Cotton 
of Boston. For about nineteen years his pastorate 
was prosperous and happy and his people were 
united. After the excitement which followed the 
preaching of Whitefield and others, in the Great 
Awakening, about 1740-1743, some of his people 
began to be dissatisfied. They charged him with 
"not being evangelical enough." They said that he 
was "an opposer of the work of God's spirit ;" 
probably because he did not enter into the revival 
with such zeal as it seemed to them to demand. 
They also declared that he was "a preacher of 
damnable good works." The church itself they 
styled "Babylon, Egypt, and Anti-Christ, whom 



Where They Were, etc. 131 

God would destroy." They furthermore declared 
that all good men ought "to come out from among 
them and be separate." This they proceeded to do, 
and the church was rent in twain. It was so weak- 
ened that in about four years Mr. Cotton gave up 
fljhe vain struggle, resigned his pastorate and left 
the town. March 7, 1743, the half of Mr. Cotton's 
church which had seceded were organized into a 
"Second, or Beneficent Congregational Church of 
Providence." Punchard says, "This seems to have 
been what was known in those days as a 'Separate' 
or 'New Light' Church." They formally adopted 
the Cambridge Platform, in 1745, by which they 
signified their entire dissent from the ecclesiastical 
principles of the Saybrook Platform. They first 
called Elisha Paine, of Canterbury, Conn., to be- 
come their pastor, but he declined the call. In 1745 
they gave their approbation to Joseph Snow, 
Jr., one of their own number, as a preacher. 
October 20, 1746, they called him to the 
pastorate. But he was not ordained till Feb- 
ruary, 1747. He served the church for fifty-seven 
years. He was a carpenter by trade, and took the 
lead in erecting a house of worship. It was vari- 
ously called, "The New Light Meeting House," 
"The Tenement Church," "Mr. Snow's Meeting 
House." "Mr. Snow was not a liberally educated 
man," says Dr. Vose. "He was a man of one book, 
and that the Bible." But he was a man of deep 
piety and of great good sense. He was acquainted 



13 2 The Separates 

with works of theology, was sound in doctrine, and 
carefully improved his talents and opportunities. 
He was an earnest preacher, and "had a bodily pres- 
ence and strength of lungs sufficient to enforce his 
preaching to the utmost/' He died in 1803, aged 
eighty-nine, after a ministry of nearly fifty-eight 
years. 

Dr. Stiles says of Mr. Snow, in his diary, that 
he was a private, illiterate brother of Mr. Cotton's 
church, and that, "in 1746 he headed a large separa- 
tion which almost broke up that church." The year 
was 1743 and not 1746. Dr. Stiles also said of Mr. 
Snow, "He is loud and boisterous, but delivers many 
sound truths, and pretty well understands the gos- 
pel of grace, and is of a sober, serious, exemplary 
life." "In 1793," says Rev. J. G. Vose, d. d v 
"Father Snow withdrew from the church over which 
he had prayerfully watched for half a century." 
The reason for this withdrawal seems to have been 
that he did not like the doctrines of his successor, 
who was more of a Methodist than a Calvinist. 
Hard words and severe measures followed. Mr. 
Snow rebuked the church, and the church retaliated 
by suspending him from the ministry. Efforts to- 
ward a settlement of the trouble were unavailing. 
Mr. Snow, "followed by some faithful friends and 
most excellent people," withdrew, "calling them- 
selves the true church and taking with them the 
records, which were Mr. Snow's private property, 
as no clerk had ever been appointed." Professor 



Where They Were, etc. 133 

Dexter, in a foot-note on page 114, volume I, of 
Dr. Stiles' diary, says that "The church thus sep- 
arated is now represented by the Union Congrega- 
tional Church," of Providence. 

Under date of January 2, 1769, the Beneficent 
church, of which Mr. Snow was the pastor, passed a 
vote which points to the method of material support 
adopted by it in those early days. "The church con- 
sidered it as the duty of each male member, to give 
in a proper and honest account of their worldly 
circumstances unto the said seven brethren," whom 
the church had chosen for that purpose, "to pro- 
portion, according to each member's circumstances 
and abilities," the amount which each ought to pay 
for the support of the minister and the poor of the 
church. This "New Light" church is still, as it al- 
ways has been, in the ranks of our Congregational 
churches, 

During the ten years between 1740 and 1750, 
forty-five Congregational churches were formed in 
Massachusetts. Rev. Joseph S. Clark, d. d v says, 
"Eight or nine had their origin in this spirit of 
Separatism; while more than twice as many others 
originating in the same spirit, grew at length into 
Baptist churches." Rev. George Leon Walker, 

D. d v says, "The number of such churches in Massa- 
chusetts is uncertain, but the best known among 
them were those of Attleboro, Rehoboth, Middle- 
boro, Bridgewater, Grafton, Sunderland, Norton, 
Wrentham, Charlestown and Sturbridge." We 



134 The Separates 

have definite information about part of these Massa- 
chusetts Separate churches. The church in Middle- 
borough became divided over the choice of a pastor 
to succeed the Rev. Peter Thatcher, the third pastor, 
who died April 22, 1744. The church "voted to 
hear Mr. Sylvanus Conant four Sabbaths upon pro- 
bation." The parish committee hired another man 
to preach in the meeting-house on the same days. 
The church met in another place till Mr. Conant's 
probation was ended, when they chose him for pas- 
tor and presented their choice to the parish. The 
parish negatived the choice of the church. How- 
ever, the latter called a council of five other churches, 
by whose help Mr. Conant was ordained as its pas- 
tor, March 28, 1745. The parish, with "less than 
a quarter of the church called themselves the stand- 
ing part of it, and went on and ordained another 
minister, the next October, and held the old house 
and ministerial lands, and taxed all the parish for his 
support." — Backus. The church built another 
meeting-house, and supported their own minister. 
For several years they were able to get no relief 
from the legislature. This church seems to have 
become the First Baptist Church in Middleboro, 
January 16, 1756, over which the pastor, under the 
old regime, was insttialled June 23 of the same year. 

In 1749 more than sixty of the members of the 
Separate church in Sturbridge, including all their 
officers, were baptized, and espoused the Baptist 
faith. In 1751 the pastor and others of the Sepa- 



Where They Were, etc. 135 

rate church in the joining borders of Bridge water 
and Middleboro were baptized and became identi- 
fied with that denomination. About the same time 
several were immersed in Raynham. In some cases 
those who had joined the Baptist fold continued to 
commune with their former pedobaptist brethren, 
until it was decided that, by such communion, they 
recognized sprinkling as baptism, which they could 
not do without violating their own consciences.* 

A disposition to criticize ministers was developed 
among some who were most deeply affected by the 
Great Revival. In this they were encouraged by 
Gilbert Tennent, whose speech was not always 
flavored and sweetened by honey from Hymettus, 
when he spoke of the clergymen who did not enter 
heartily into the religious awakening. Sentiments 
of this kind led to the dismission of Rev. Samuel 
Mather from the Second, or North Church in Bos- 
ton in December, 1741. He, with ninety-three 
members, withdrew and formed a new organization, 
over which he was installed July 19, 1742. Dr. 
Joseph S. Clark says that this was the tenth Con- 
gregational church in Boston, and that they "built 
a meeting house on the corner of North Bennett 
and Hanover Streets." Mr. Mather was accused of 
vagueness in preaching some of the cardinal doc- 
trines, and with discouraging conversions. The 
real complaint, however, was Mr. Mather's lack of 
sympathy with some features of the revival. In 
*I am indebted to Backus for these facts. 



136 The Separates 

this case the seceders were not people unduly stirred 
by religious enthusiasm, but the opposite. How- 
ever, the Separation was brought about by the same 
spirit which led the more zealous to come out from 
the formal, legal and lifeless churches. But in this 
case it was the other man's ox which was gored. 
They continued separate worship till Dr. Mather 
died in 1785. In accordance with his dying request 
the flock returned Itio their former fold. In 1744 
there was a small secession from the first church in 
Plymouth, which returned in 1776. Whether 
these separations were on account of religious 
scruples, such as often prompted such movements, 
is not stated. But, as the spirit of separa- 
tion from the churches of the "standing or- 
der" was in the air, it is probable that 
such was the case. January 3, 1746, nineteen 
disaffected members of the First Church in New- 
bury withdrew and formed a separate organization. 
It is now the First Presbyterian Church in New- 
buryport. May 22, 1746, "a large secession from 
the Second Church in Ipswich (now Essex) was 
effected. " But in 1774 'they returned to the church 
which they had left. A similar occurrence took 
place in 1747 in Wbburn, the seceders returning 
after a few years. 

There was not the same persecution in Massa- 
chusetts which we find in Connecticut. Peo- 
ple were taxed to support the churches of the 
"standing order." This was not a matter of 



Where They Were, etc. 137 

choice. Parish despotism was not wanting. But 
the protests of the Separates finally helped to liberate 
the churches from this despotism. Religious lib- 
erty made great gains. The burdens imposed by 
fthe "standing order," by which "all who were not 
Baptists, or something else known as a distinct de- 
nomination/' were compelled "to pay taxes for the 
support of the 'able, learned, Orthodox minister/ 
whom the major part of the voters had settled over 
them," were at last removed, in Massachusetts, and 
all the Separates either became Baptists, or returned 
to the folds which they had left. The controver- 
sies were not so bitter in the Bay Colony, and the 
Separating brethren were not so widely alienated 
as in the Connecticut colony, so that the return 
to the original fold was, in most cases, not so dif- 
ficult. 

There were also a few Separate churches in New 
Hampshire, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. About 
1666 some thirty families emigrated to New Jersey 
from Milford, in the New Haven colony, and began 
a Christian plantation. The union of the New 
Haven and Connecticut colonies was the immediate 
cause. In New Haven it was held that only church 
members should be voters; in Hartford the op- 
posite view was held. In New Haven the Half- 
Way Covenant was repudiated; in Hartford it 
was practiced. These differences of opinion 
operated powerfully on the minds of the New Haven 
Christians. The dissatisfaction was so great that 



138 The Separates 

(they preferred to leave the colony and settle again in 
the wilderness. Accordingly, settlements were 

made and churches planted in New Jersey, which 
remained Congregational churches of the strictest 
sort, until, in most cases, they became Presbyterian. 

May 26, 1758, Mr. Elisha Paine, one of the Con- 
necticut Separates, and a leader in the withdrawal 
of the Canterbury church from the established or- 
der, organized the "First Strict Congregational 
church of Southold," afterwards called Riverhead, 
L. I. In 1783 Daniel Youngs was ordained pastor of 
this church by "the Strict Congregational Conven- 
tion of Connecticut," which seemed to exercise juris- 
diction in Long Island. In 1785 Mr. Youngs or- 
ganized a second Separate church at Riverhead. In 
November, 1787, the Connecticut convention or- 
dained Rev. Jacob Corwin as its pastor. In Octo- 
ber, 1788, the same body ordained Rev. Noah Hal- 
lock as an evangelist on Long Island. In Septem- 
ber, 1790, Rev. Paul Cuffee, an Indian of the Shin- 
necock tribe, was ordained as pastor of the Strict 
Congregational churches at Canoe Place and Poose- 
pet ! auk, composed mostly of native Indians. This 
connection of these churches of Long Island with 
the Strict Congregational churches of Connecticut 
continued till 1791. August 26 of that year, after 
much prayer and consideration, it was decided to 
form "the Long Island Convention of Strict Con- 
gregational Chundhes," separate from, but like the 
Connecticut body. Revivals blessed these churches, 



Where They Were, etc. 139 

and large additions were frequently made to them. 
Nearly two hundred were added to the first Strict 
Congregational church at Riverhead during the min- 
istry of Rev. Daniel Youngs. In 1839 there were 
nine churches and five ministers connected with the 
Long Island Convention, and there was an aggre- 
gate of about one thousand members. From Long 
Island ''the movement spread to other places and 
some churches in New York and New Jersey trace 
their origin to it." These churches, as we have 
seen, were organized in 1791, into the "Long Island 
Convention." Then there was formed a body known 
as "The Long Island Association of 1836-40." In 
1840 it was proposed to form another "ecclesiastical 
body which should unite in one all the Congregation- 
al churches and ministers in the county" of Suffolk. 
Accordingly, in March, 1840, "The Long Island 
Consociation" was formed, which "absorbed the two 
bodies then existing;" that is, the Convention and 
the Association. This, in 1873, g" ave place to "The 
Suffolk Association of Congregational churches and 
ministers." This accounts for the Separate 
churches on Long Island, which sprang from the 
Connecticut convention. 

Eastern Connecticut was the principal scene of 
the events narrated in the preceding chapters, and 
of the origin of the Separate movement of 1740 to 
1750. In a few towns in other parts of the colony, 
Separate worshiping assemblies were gathered. 
They were mostly confined, however, ito about thirty 



140 The Separates 

towns in New London and Windham Counties. 
They finally were organized into an ecclesiastical 
body, known as "The Strict Congregational Conven- 
tion of Connecticut." 

In 1740 there were a few "New Lights" in 
Tolland who withdrew from the communion of the 
church. In 1760, Mr. Robert C. Learned says, 
there were but few of them remaining. There is no 
evidence that they were formed into a church. 
There were separations from the regular church in 
Ashford, but no society was organized. The 
dissenters joined either the Baptists or neighboring 
Separate churches. There was also a considerable 
separation in the second church of Pomfret, now 
Brooklyn. In 174 1-2 a considerable number were 
added to the church. Among them were some who 
were eager to exercise their liberty of laboring and 
exhorting, and who were in full sympathy with the 
revival. These people went so far in the assertion 
of their rights, as they termed it, that they destroyed 
the peace of the church. The matter was taken up 
for discipline. A meeting of the consociation was 
called by ithe church for advice. Ten ministers, 
with their delegates, met October 10, 1743, in re- 
sponse to the summons of the church, at the house 
of Rev. Ephraim Avery, the pastor. The separat- 
ing brethren were invited to appear before them 
and give their reasons for the course which they had 
taken. They, however, believing that they had 
gone in the path of duty, "and not seeing wherein 



Where They Were, etc. 141 

the constitution of <the Consociation was granted by 
the Word of God, could not in conscience comply." 
Admonition followed admonition, but to no purpose. 
The final issue was that fourteen of these brethren, 
refusing to retract or ask the church for mercy, were 
publicly excommunicated. Eleven others were 

tried for persisting in separation, and were formally 
admonished April 13, 1748. None of them, how- 
ever, were present to hear the admonition; and 
when it was carried to their homes some refused to 
touch it, others cast it into the fire. These 
Separates were not gathered into a society, but most 
of them united with the church in Canterbury. 
Some of the more prominent ones were finally taken 
back into the fellowship of the regular church. 
This defection did not seriously affect the strength 
and prosperity of ithe Mortlake Parish, as the Second 
Church of Pomfret was called. 

Rev. Jacob Eliot of Goshen had some trouble in 
his parish with the "New Lights." I am indebted 
to Rev. John Avery of Norwich for the following 
facts taken from Mr. Eliot's diary: Mr. Eliot, in 
April, 1742, speaks of two of his parishioners, — a 
man and his wife, being "distracted by New 
Light." And, on a loose scrap of paper, which 
was probably drawn up about the same time, he gives 
a somewhat lengthy chapter of Remarkables in 
time of New Lights. In it he speaks of their 
"remaining in church on the Sabbath, singing and 
exhorting, after the public service was closed"; of 



142 The Separates 

>their being affected with "trances and extraordinary 
fits, jumping up at full length"; of their pretending 
to "read in the dark"; of their claiming that "the 
devil had appeared in Colchester;" of one "Deni- 
son's laying his hands upon a man's head and his 
falling down and lying apparently dead at his feet 
for a while"; of "a man in Norwich hearing a voice 
telling him that if he would fall in with these ex- 
traordinary things he would be as good a Christian 
as any of them, and a contrary voice in the other 
ear not to mind the devil but read I Jn 4: i"; of 
"one of his own parishioners telling him audibly be- 
fore many that he (Mr. Eliot) was an opposer of 
the work of God, and of the kingdom of Christ, and 
knew in his own conscience it was so, and that there 
never was such a pope in the world." 

"Mr. Eliot's trouble with the New Lights seems to 
have been located for the most part in the north part 
(now Exeter) of his parish, whose inhabitants he 
habitually speaks of as 'The North Enders.' Here 
undoubtedly was felt in some degree the influence 
of Pomeroy of Hebron and Wheelock of Lebanon 
Crank (now Columbia), both of whom, probably, 
were about as much inclined to wink at even the un- 
justifiable proceedings of the New Lights as Eliot 
was to frown upon them." 

In several other communities there were similar 
cases of the separation of individuals from the regu- 
lar churches, but not in sufficient numbers to war- 
rant the organization of a church. For example, 



Where They Were, etc. 143 

take the case of Nathan Cole of Kensington, who af- 
terwards united with the church in Middletown, now 
the South Congregational Church of that city. In 
his "Spiritual Travels/' he tells how he was deeply 
moved by the preaching of Mr. Whitefield, to hear 
whom he traveled all the way from Kensington 
to Middletown, on horseback, with his wife. He 
was profoundly moved by the sermon. He speaks 
of being deeply convicted of sin: "I was loaded 
with the guilt of sin, I saw I was undone 
forever," and much more of the same sort. At last 
he saw light and found a measure of peace, and he 
cried oult, 

"Jesus and I shall never part 

For God is greater than my heart." 

Then followed some of those "imprudences and 
irregularities" of which Trumbull speaks, as having 
injured the work of the revival, and awakened the 
opposition of many of the leading regular churches. 
Nathan Cole tells us that after his conversion he 
had a vision of "the form of A Gospel Church, 
and the place where it was settled and Angels 
hovering over it, saying, the Glory of the town, 
and strangers that came passing by had the same 
to say." Then he began to see that the standing 
churches were not of the gospel order; he saw Icha- 
bod written on the old church of which he had been 
a member for fourteen or fifteen years, "for they 
held several things contrary to the gospel," for 
example, "that unconverted men had a divine right 



144 The Separates 

to come to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and 
to give themselves up in covenant to the Lord; 
whereas the Lord says to the wicked, 'what hast 
those to do to take my covenant into thy mouth.' " 
This he called lying unto God, "on both sides/' that 
is, by the church, and by those who joined it. He 
saw but one course open to him and took it, as 
others had done in other communities. "Then I 
came out and separated or dissented from them, for 
I could not see them to be a Gospel Church, or 
Christ's spouse, Christ's bride, Christ's beloved one, 
or Christ's garden well enclosed." So he says that 
he was called on to become as "the off scouring of 
die Earth, and to lose my own life, as it were, in 
the world, for my religion." He tells us that the 
step was hard to take, "was like death to the flesh, 
but God gave me grace according to my day ; and in 
a little time, he made every bitter thing sweet." 
The date of his separation from the regular church 
he gives as follows : "I Nathan Cole Separated 
from the Saybrook Church in y e year 1747, & 
kept meetings in my own house on ye Sabbath with 
a few others, that came to me and sometimes we 
had preachers come to us." This went on till Fri- 
day, June 29, 1764, when he joined "Mr. Frdth- 
ingham's Congregational Church in Middletown." 
This, he tells us, at considerable length, he believed 
to be the Gospel Church of which he had had a 
vision nearly twenty years before. 

This case of Nathan Cole is given as an ex- 



Where They Were, etc. 145 

ample of very many individual separations from, 
or protests against, the Saybrook Platform, which 
never resulted in an organized church. This case 
also illustrates the sincere spirit of the whole move- 
ment; although to some it may seem to have been 
ill-advised. 

Probably the first distinct case of separation took 
place in New London in 1742. These people, who 
came out from Mr. Adams' church, at this time, 
were among the first in the colony to be organized 
into a Separate socieity. I have been able to find 
no definite instance that was earlier. In that case 
the Separate movement had its beginning in the 
First Church of Christ, New London. In 1741 
there were signs of the approaching event. Mr. 
Parsons preached for Mr. Adams in June of that 
year. He said that he found rising jealousies which 
soon ripened into "open separation.'' In the follow- 
ing February, David Brainerd preached for Mr. 
Adams, and found the condition of things in "wild 
confusion.'' Matters grew worse till the autumn of 
1742. November 29 was communion Sabbath. It 
was noticed that several of the prominent members 
of Mr. Adams' church were absent. This was the 
nucleus of a company of people who met, at first, at 
each other's houses. They, with others, to the num- 
ber of about one hundred, associated themselves into 
a Separate Society, and were qualified by the county 
court to hold meetings and worship together with- 
out molestation. This seems to have been done as 



10 



146 The Separates 

early as July; for Hempstead, who was the legal 
officer, speaks, in his diary, of going, July 10th, to 
confer with Mr. Allen about preaching in private 
houses. Evidently, Mr. Allen, of whom mention 
has been made in a previous chapter, was on the 
ground at that time, and Separate meetings were 
being held. No record exists of the regular or- 
ganization of a Separate church further than has 
been stated. But there was a "Separate Society," 
and a worshiping assembly, who bad Mr. Timothy 
Allen as teacher, and Mr. Jonathan Hill as ex- 
horter, in the year 1742. If a church was regularly 
organized, it probably was done in connection with 
the strange scene of burning the books, etc., already 
described. And it may be said that there is as much 
evidence, as in most of the cases, that a Separate 
church was organized here. But it soon disap- 
peared; for Mr. Allen did not remain long after 
that ebullition of zeal, and the Separate congrega- 
tion of New London had no leader after he left. 
Most of those, especially (tffae principal ones, who had 
separated from the regular church, returned to it. 
The rest, under the leadership of Nathan Howard, 
adopted Baptist principles, and joined in forming 
what is now the First Baptist Church of Water- 
ford, in 1748, and Howard became its pastor, and 
remained so until his death. 

The church in Canterbury became Separate in 
1 744. This has been called the first Separate church 
in Connecticut and probably in New England. 



Where They Were, etc, 147 

This claim does not mean that Separate gatherings 
for worship were held here first, nor that churches 
of this order had not been organized elsewhere 
before this date, bult, to quote Miss Larned, 
that "the church in Canterbury was the first 
in Connecticut, and perhaps in New England, 
in which the church as a body, by a large major- 
ity, adopted 'New Light' principles." It is quite 
true, as will be seen, that the Windham County 
Consociation pronounced judgment against them, 
and recognized the minority as the church. But this 
minority never held the original records, which the 
majority took with them. Undoubtedly, the major- 
ity was the church. In this view Ebenezer Froth- 
ingham was right when he remonstrated with the 
worn-out Separates for seeking society privileges, 
and recalled that glorious day "when the first visi- 
ble church of Christ in the colony took up Christ's 
sweet cross," referring to the Canterbury church. 
The story of the origin of this Canterbury church 
is an interesting and a significant one. The regular 
or established church was organized June 11, 171 1. 
January 27, 1743, the question w^as raised whether 
the church would accept the Saybrook Platform, 
or the Cambridge Platform of 1648. It voted 
unanimously that the latter "is most agreeable to 
the former and designed practice of this church 
(except their having ruling elders or district offi- 
cers) and most agreeable to the Scriptures." This 
volte repudiated the authority of the consociation. 



148 The Separates 

and took issue squarely with the vote of the legis- 
lature in the following May, which made the Say- 
brook Platform obligatory upon all Congregation- 
alists or Presbyterians. In 1741 Rev. Mr. Wads- 
worth was dismissed from the church. He went 
out under a cloud. The church was left in a low 
spiritual state. Through the preaching of Mr. 
Buel, a noted revivalist, a quickened interest was 
awakened in many. Among them were Elisha and 
Solomon Paine. As this church had never adopted 
the Saybrook but the Cambridge Platform, a com- 
mittee was appointed to enquire into the former con- 
stitution of the church and report. The legislation 
of May, 1742, put a new face on affairs. Matters 
were in worse confusion. The religious interest 
divided -the town into two parties. The one was 
bitterly opposed to the revival, and sought, in every 
possible way, to rob it of its fruits. This party 
was the minority of the church. The other party 
was composed of those who had been deeply moved 
by the revival under Mr. Buel, and were called 
fanatics, zealots, etc. The leader of the former 
party was Colonel Dyer. The leader of the latter 
party was Elisha Paine. Colonel Dyer and his party 
admitted that the Cambridge Platform was most 
agreeable to the " former and designed practice" of 
the church, and so voted, when the committee, ap- 
pointed to enquire into the matter, so reported. But 
they bitterly denounced and opposed the evangel- 
istic measures which were favored by Elisha 



Where They Were, etc. 149 

Paine and his party. As we have seen above, the 
vote here referred to was taken January 2J, 17 43. 
The crisis came in the matter of calling a pastor 
to succeed Mr. Wadsworth. The first party, com- 
posed of a minority of the church, seventeen of 
whom were under censure, or had been excommuni- 
cated, together with a majority of the society, voted, 
in 1744, to call Rev. James Cogswell. The major- 
ity of the church were not pleased with him, be- 
cause his preaching seemed to them cold, formal and 
legal. After hearing him a few Sabbaths they 
protested against calling him, and refused to hear 
him preach. However, the climax of the difficulty 
was not reached, and the separation made final, until 
an effort at agreement had been made. The mi- 
nority of the church, led by Colonel Dyer, and 
the Society, summoned the Consociation of Wind- 
ham County to their aid. By this act they accepted 
the authority of the consociation, and declared 
themselves to be under, and virtually adopted, the 
Saybrook Platform. Yet only the year before 
these very persons had voted unanimously, 
with the church, that they were under the Cam- 
bridge Platform. Deacon Backus, Solomon Paine, 
Obadiah Johnson, and others of the opposite party, 
— a majority of the church, — were invited to join 
in laying fcheir difficulties before the consociation. 
But the church had adopted the Cambridge Plat- 
form, and through its special committee had de- 
clared that it still stood upon it. They therefore 



150 The Separates 

refused to recognize the authority of a body con- 
stituted by the platform, which the church had 
unanimously repudiated twelve months before. 
However, they called a council of sister churches 
to sit in judgment upon their difficulties. Both 
bodies, the consociation and the council, met Decem- 
ber 12, 1743. The former held its sessions in the 
meeting-house, of which Colonel Dyer's party held 
the custody of the keys. The Council met at the 
house of Captain John Wadsworth. After due de- 
liberation both bodies counseled peace, and recom- 
mended tba>t either Mr. Lee or Mr. Cogswell be 
called. Solomon Paine and his party accepted the 
advice of the council v^hich they had summoned, 
and attended upon the preaching of Mr. Cogswell 
for some time. But after hearing him a few Sab- 
baths they were constrained to renew their oppo- 
sition to him. Nevertheless, at a meeting held Nov- 
ember 27, 1744, the society and the minority of the 
church, to the number of sixteen, led by Colonel 
Dyer, voted, as has been said, to call Mr. Cogswell. 
In this vote, at the suggestion of Colonel Dyer, those 
who extended the call declared themselves to be un- 
der the Saybrook Platform, and so to be under the 
authority of the consociation. 

Those who had called, and were now to settle 
Mr. Cogswell, declaring themselves to be the First 
Church in Canterbury, though largely in the mi- 
nority, and, some of them under its censure, sum- 
moned the Consociation of Windham County to 



Where They Were, etc. 151 

meet for the ordination of Mr. James Cogswell, 
and to decide between them and the majority, who 
dissented from the action taken in calling Mr. Cogs- 
well, as to which were entitled to be called the First 
Church in Canterbury. The consociation met 
December 26, 1744. They decided "that those who 
on that day [January 27, 1743] voted themselves 
Congregational according to the Cambridge Plat- 
form, are to be esteemed by that explicit act to have 
denominated themselves another church, and sepa- 
rated themselves from those who adhered to the 
Saybrook Regulations/' and were therefore "Sepa- 
rators;" that those who called Mr. James Cogs- 
well, November 27, 1744, although they had joined 
in the vote of January 27, 1743, adopting the Cam- 
bridge Platform, were, nevertheless, "The Church 
of Canterbury." The consociation proceeded to 
ordain Mr. Cogswell against the protest of the large 
majority of the church, in accordance with a minor 
vote of the church with a major vote of the society. 
This act was unconstitutional according to the Plat- 
form under which they acted. For that document 
expressly stated that, in the ordination of a minister, 
as pastor of a church, there shall be consent of a 
majority of its members. This is an example of the 
high-handed measures which were taken, both by 
the legislature and the leading clergymen, to force 
the Saybrook Platform upon the churches in Con- 
necticut, and to repress "zealous experimental 
preachers and people." And yet no act was more 



152 The Separates 

disorderly, according to the Saybrook Platform, 
than the ordination of Mr. James Cogswell in spite 
of the protest of a large majority of the church. 
These, who were declared to be "Separates," "schis- 
matics," and "violaters of the standing order," com- 
prised about fifty families, were largely in the 
majority, had the records of the church, and there- 
fore its organization. By every law of ecclesiastical 
procedure the majority who refused to assent to the 
settlement of Mr. Cogswell were the church. How- 
ever, the consociation decided against them, pro- 
ceeded to ordain him and denounce the remonstrants 
as " Separates." These people, who were really the 
church, being thus ostracized by the ecclesiastical au- 
thority which had the law of the colony behind it, 
proceeded to hold meetings by themselves, in private 
houses, and elsewhere, which was contrary to the 
law. Their exhorters conducted public worship and 
preached, which was in defiance of the act of May, 
1742. Many of them were arrested, fined and im- 
prisoned. In some cases they lay in jail for months, 
and their families suffered for the necessities of life. 
The course which they took was in open violation 
of the statute. But the question arises whether the 
statute was not unjust and in violation of every 
man's constitutional right; in open violation even 
of the charter of the colony itself. 

About 1782 this church was reorganized. Its 
house of worship was removed from where it stood 
near "the green," and set up in the north part 



Where They Were, etc. 153 

of the town, where it stood till about 1853. The 
church became known as "the North Church in Can- 
terbury, Separated Dec. 1744." As such it was 
received into the communion of the regular Congre- 
gational churches. Their first preacher was Solo- 
mon Paine, who was settled over it in 1746. Joseph 
Marshall was the next. His ministry began in 
April, 1759, five years after the death of Mr. Paine. 
He was dismissed in 1768. William Bradford and 
others followed till 1831, when the church had 
virtually become extinct. Being the majority of the 
church at the time when the consociation declared 
them to be Separates, they always affirmed them- 
selves to be the original church. They retained the 
records, and the communion service. Undoubtedly 
they were the church. However, the church which 
ordained Mr. Cogswell remains, while that body 
which refused assent to his call and ordination is 
extinct. There were bodies of dissenters in several 
places before Canterbury. But admitting their 
claim, as we must, the church in Canterbury 
was the first to espouse Separate principles as a 
church. 

A Separate Church was organized in Lisbon, 
which at that time was a portion of Norwich, 
known as Newent. As to the date of this organi- 
zation a manuscript history of the church in Lis- 
bon says that it took place soon after the organiza- 
tion of the Separate church in Canterbury, and that 
it was "made up of disaffected but undismissed 



154 The Separates 

members of this/' the regular church. The chroni- 
cler adds, "The original Newent church kindly treat- 
ing and treating with members who unkindly and 
by breach of covenant had broken out from its fold, 
so learned why these took the course they did." 
The reasons alleged for the separation were, to 
quote further from the chronicler, "want of edifi- 
cation from the church's minister; this church 
lacked gospel order, as having no ordained ruling 
elders and no ordained deacons; owned Christ in 
words, but in deeds denied him; held external pro- 
fessions to be evidences of a gracious state; con- 
tained unconverted men; and held in covenant per- 
sons not in full communion." January 17, 1746, 
the regular church proceeded "to riddle these rea- 
sons, taking up each separately" and voted, with 
regard to each, "Not sufficient." It also voted 
to "call upon them to retract and return 
to this church with proper reflection on themselves 
publicly, according to gospel rules, which warning 
is to be given them publicly by the Pastor after the 
lecture preparatory to the next sacrament notifying 
them to appear. The which warning if they refuse 
to hearken to, the church agree to suspend them 
from Communion in special ordinances after due 
warning." Fifteen persons appeared before the 
society and agreed to pay "this year's rates of those 
that appear to be sober and conscientous Sepa- 
rates." 

But the warning of the church was not heeded. 



Where They Were, etc. 155 

The Separate society was formed. Jeremiah Tracy, 
Jr., was called to be the pastor of the seceders, and 
administered the ordinances to them. A record of 
the regular church says, "By credible information, 
Jeremiah Tracy, Jr., has taken upon him to be a 
preacher, a calling which we don't apprehend God 
has called him to." 

Dr. Stiles in his diary says that Mr. Thomas 
Denison was called to the office of teacher in this 
Newent Separate church. As there was some doubt 
expressed as 'to his previous (Baptist) ordination, he 
was reordained by several whom he himself had 
ordained. Among them was Mr. Hovey of Mans- 
field. "This," says Dr. Stiles, "was about 1747." 

Mr. Bliss Willoughby was called, in 1753, to suc- 
ceed Jeremiah Tracy, Jr., as pastor of the church. 
A meeting-house was built which, the chronicler 
declares, stood "longer than any occasion for using 
it appeared." It was taken down in 1765, and its 
timber was used in the construction of a barn which 
was standing after the nineteenth century began. 

When the Separate society was formed "there 
were not more, or at most scarcely more than a score 
that Separated from the Xewent Church." The 
same chronicler adds that "most, if not all, who 
were specially of worth," were won back to the old 
church. The chronicler continues, "The Separatist 
church were as sheep without a shepherd. Mr. 
Willoughby, after supervising them two or three 
years, and after visiting England as an agent of 



156 The Separates 

Separatists generally had recrossed the ocean and 
having gone to another denomination, preached at 
Bennington, Vt." Mr. Amos A. Browning says 
that nearly all the members of the Newent Separa- 
rate church emigrated to Bennington, Vermont, 
where they formed a settlement, "and gathered 
again as the same church/ ' where they finally be- 
came identified with the regular Congregational 
churches. Of those who remained, "a considerable 
number of the disbanded [Separate church of 
Newent] became members of the Brunswick 
Church." November 19 and 20, 1770, a meeting of 
the regular church in Newent was held. "Some of 
those who had been of y e Separate C^ 1 gave an ac- 
count of their experimental acquaintance with 
Christ," and "joined in a Solemn Renewal of Cove- 
nant and in Receiving and Consenting to the Con- 
fession of faith Contained in y e Records of this 
Ch'h." At this meeting eight "heads of agree- 

ment" were unanimously adopted. The chronicler 
adds, "Those heads accepted as specially needful for 
this church at that time are in every respect ad- 
mirable for clear discrimination and manly asser- 
tion of civil rights, as well as for decisive applica- 
tion of Christian principle in that Christian spirit 
Which protects the claim of conscience by honoring 
the claim of God." Among the eight heads of 
agreement were these, which were a distinct 
concession to the Separates : "It is not according to 
the rule of Christ's house to admit any to transact 



Where They Were, etc, 157 

in the ordinance of baptism, who are not at the 
same time apparently qualified by the Lord's Sup- 
per; nor to bring their children to baptism till they 
are actually in the communion of the church ;" "that 
it is not expedient nor for the health of this church 
to compel any by civil power contrary to their 
minds, to pay anything to the support of the gospel; 
but that all [should] be left to do it in such voluntary 
way as they shall think proper." The chronicler 
adds, "that fourth head was instantly effectual in 
killing here the halfway covenant." As these points 
of agreement covered the chief reasons for the 
original secession, this was the end of the Separate 
movement in Lisbon. 

A Separate church, of thirty male members, was 
organized in Norwich, at Bean Hill, in 1745. It 
was made up of persons who seceded from the First 
Church, of which the Rev. Benjamin Lord w^as, at 
the time, pastor. This event seems the more 
strange for several reasons. Mr. Lord was regarded 
as a very earnest evangelical preacher. His style 
of delivery was impressive — of the kind which 
was supposed to be pleasing to the New Lights. 
The church had refused to accept the Saybrook Plat- 
form, which was so obnoxious to the Separates, so 
strenuous was the First Church in its hold on in- 
dependency. When the pastor sought permission to 
join the New London Association, none of whose 
members had assented to the Saybrook Platform, 
the church granted permission, on condition that 



158 The Separates 

the act did not compromise the independency of the 
church nor imply consent to the New Platform 
as a mode of discipline. The association, on re- 
ceiving Mr. Lord, expressly voted that his joining 
it would not be construed as assent "to the articles 
of church discipline established by this Colony and 
as binding him and his church to be governed by 
them." 

But in spite of all this, the "New Lights" were 
not satisfied. They insisted that, because he had 
joined the Association, he and his church had for- 
saken the old platform for the new — the Cambridge 
for the Saybrook. But the futility of this objection 
appears from the fact that February 20, 1744-5, 
the church revoked the permission which they had 
granted, and protested against their pastor at- 
tending meeltings of the association in the future; 
at the same time reaffirming "their attachment to 
the Platform of the Fathers of 1648, 'not only in 
respect to doctrine and truth and form of cove- 
nant, but in respect of order and exercise of church 
discipline/ " Here, then, there was no ground for 
separation, for this vote was taken about tee time 
the "New Lights" withdrew. 

But there was another grievance. The church 
had voted : "Though it is deemed a desirable thing 
that persons who come into full communion offer 
some publick relation of their experience ; yet we do 
not judge or hold it a term of communion." Mr. 
Lord had also declared himself as decidedly averse 



Where They Were, etc. 159 

"to making a relation of experience a term of com- 
munion." The Separates were strenuous upon this 
point, as necessary to the maintenance of a pure 
church. This was a radical point of difference. 
They were not satisfied. Withdrawal was the only 
course which they saw open before them, and they 
withdrew. 

On February 19, 1744-5 was the first sign or 
evidence that a separation from Mr. Lord's church 
had taken place. The leaders in it were Hugh 
Caulkins and Jedediah Hyde. The first Separate 
meetings w r ere held in the house of Mr. Caulkins, 
near Yantic bridge. A committee of the church 
was appointed to find out the reasons for their with- 
drawal, and, if possible, bring them back into the 
church. Thirteen were cited to appear and give 
the reasons for continued absence from the church 
and its ordinances, and attending Separate meetings 
on the Sabbath. Some would not discuss the mat- 
ter; others frankly gave their reasons. The gen- 
eral reason was, "the gospel better preached else- 
where;" from which it seems that these people dis- 
sented from the general esteem in which Mr. Lord 
was held as a preacher. Jedediah Hyde's objection 
to the church was, "not making regeneration the 
only term of communion;" "opening the door too 
wide, letting in all sorts of persons without giving 
any evidence of their faith in Christ, and repent- 
ance towards God." Here was their strong point 
of objection, and it was not taken without cause. 



160 The Separates 

Later the reasons given were stated as follows: 
"Neglect of church discipline/' "coldness and want 
of application in preaching/' "the qualifications 
necessary to church membership/' "private brethren 
being debarred the privilege of exhortion and 
prayer," "the laws of the state." These reasons 
were deemed insufficient by the church. The 
separation was declared to be "uncharitable and un- 
warrantable; an offence to Christ the Head of the 
Church, and a disorderly walking." The thirteen 
offending members were suspended. 

The Separate church began, as has been said, at 
the house of Hugh Caulkins, February 19, 1745. 
October 30, 1747, Jedediah Hyde was ordained as 
its pastor. A house of worship was erected at Bean 
Hill. For reasons, which are nowhere recorded, 
Mr. Hyde was deposed September 22, 1757. Mr. 
John Fuller was ordained in his place August 17, 
1759, and was succeeded by Mr. Reynolds, who was 
ordained December 22, 1762. November 8, 1766, 
he embraced Baptist principles. Under his teach- 
ings the church languished and died. Meetings 
wxre held, however, till March 15, 1788, when the 
remnant met as Universalists. This was the end 
of the Bean Hill Separate church. They suffered 
the usual persecutions visited upon their kind; im- 
prisonment, distraint of property, and various other 
penalties inflicted for alleged violations of the law 
regulating public worship, and providing for the 
support of the gospel. One of the most noteworthy 



Where They Were, etc, 161 

cases is that of the widow Elizabeth Backus, who 
refused to pay the ministerial rates, and was put in 
jail for thirteen days, till General Jedediah Hunt- 
ington, her grandson, pledged himself to pay her 
rates annually for the support of the minister of the 
regular church. 

A letter written by Mrs. Backus to her son, dated 
ait Norwich, November 4, 1752, gives some idea of 
the temper of these people under their sufferings. 
It is as follows: 

Dear Son : — I have heard something of the trials 
among you of late, and I was grieved till I had 
strength to give the case up to God, and leave my 
burthen there. And now I would tell you some- 
thing of our trials. Your brother Samuel lay in 
prison twenty days. October 15, the collector came 
to our house, and took me away to prison about nine 
o'clock, in a dark rainv night. Brothers Hill and 
Sabin were brought there next night. We lay in 
prison thirteen days, and then were set at liberty, 
by what means I know not.* Whilst I was there, 
a great many people came to see me; and some said 
one thing, and some another. O the innumerable 
snares and temptations that beset me, more than I 
ever thought of before! But, O the condescension 
of Heaven ! Though I was bound when I was cast 
into this furnace, yet was I loosed, and found Jesus 
in the midst of the furnace with me. O, then I 
could give up my name, estate, family, life and 
breath, freely to God. Now the prison looked like 
a palace to me. I could bless God for all the laughs 

*The reason, as stated above, was, in her case, that her 
grandson agreed to pay her annual rates; apparently with- 
out her knowledge. 



11 



1 62 The Separates 

and scoffs made at me. O the love that flowed out 
to all mankind. Then I could forgive, as I would 
desire to be forgiven, and love my neighbor as my- 
self. Deacon Griswold was put in prison the 8th of 
October, and yesterday old brother Grover, and are 
in pursuit of others; all which calles for humilia- 
tion. This church hath appointed the 13th of No- 
vember to be spent in prayer and fasting on that ac- 
count. . . . 

These from your loving mother, 

Elizabeth Backus. 

This letter from this widow of fifty-four years 
shows what it often cost the Separates to stand by 
their convictions. 

Denison, in his notes on the Baptists in Norwich, 
and their principles, gives the following account of 
the final end of the Bean Hill Separate meeting- 
house : "The meeting house of the Separate Church 
in Norwich was for a time used for a female acad- 
emy taught by Dr. Morse, the author of Geogra- 
phies and Gazeteers ; it was afterwards occupied for 
a time by the Methodists till they entered their 
chapel in 1834. The house was finally taken down 
in 1843 to m ake place for the new school house." 

October 9, 1745, the Separates in Mansfield em- 
bodied themselves into a church, solemnly covenant- 
ing together as such, without letters of dismission 
from the churches from which they withdrew. Sev- 
eral were under censure, probably for the offence of 
listening to "New Light" preachers. A brief ac- 
count of the regular church in Mansfield says, that 



Where They Were, etc. 163 

"the early part of Dr. Salter's ministry was em- 
barassed and tried by the conduct of some of the 
members of his church who were the radicals of the 
memorable revival of 1740. These denounced the 
Church and Pastor as dead, hypocrites, and devoid 
of all spiritual religion, and went out from them 
in a disorderly manner, and formed a separate 
church. The Church, after bearing with them for 
a time were constrained to cut them off." The se- 
ceders chose Deacon Thomas Marsh to be their pas- 
tor. January 6, 1746, was set apart for his ordina- 
tion, as their teaching elder. A number of ministers 
of the neighboring churches of the established order, 
hearing of the proposed ordination, met with a view 
of discoursing with them, and, if possible, of dis- 
suading them from their purpose. But it was with- 
out avail. But Mr. Marsh was not ordained; for 
the day before that appointed for his ordination he 
was arrested and put in jail for the crime of preach- 
ing without a license. A great company of people 
gathered on the appointed day. Elisha Paine 

preached. The ministers of the regular churches 
were present to protest. Their reception was 
tumultuous, and their protest vain. The Separates 
met again in February, 1745-6, to ordain John 
Hovey, who had meanwhile been chosen as pastor. 
This service was attended with some difficulty be- 
cause an ordained person could not be found to per- 
form it. At length they secured the assistance of 
Thomas Denison, formerly a Baptist elder, who had 



164 The Separates 

recently been ordained by Ebenezer Moulton of 
Brimfield, and who traced his ministerial succes- 
sion back to three noted Congregational ministers 
of Boston. So Mr. Hovey was ordained pastor of 
the Mansfield Separate church. He continued in of- 
fice many years. He died October 28, 1775. Deacon 
Marsh was kept locked securely in Windham County 
jail until July, when he was released, and the church 
at once ordained him as colleague of Mr. Hovey. In 
1765 the church had wasted so that there were 
but two men and two women who remained 
members. These obtained "liberty of communion" 
with the church in South Killingly, till the Lord 
should provide for them some other way. Thus 
the movement in Mansfield came to an end. The 
Canterbury church retained its original covenant. 
So the articles of faith of the Mansfield church, 
twenty-two in number, referred to in a previous 
chapter, were the first known elaborate and care- 
fully framed statement of doctrine and practice pub- 
lished by the Separate leaders. 

The revival in Plainfield, as in other places, 
resulted in a division of the church. A mi- 
nority of this body became uneasy at the 
practice of admitting members without a 
narration of their experience, and of baptiz- 
ing children whose parents were not members of the 
church. Mr. Coit, the pastor, was old and cautious, 
and unwilling to make changes or concessions. At 
length the uneasy minority withdrew from the 



Where They Were, etc. 165 

standing church, and organized as a church on the 
Cambridge Platform. This was accomplished in 
1746. They called, as was the usual custom of 
the Separates, one of their own number to the min- 
istry, and he was ordained September 11, as appears 
from a letter missive to the Canterbury church, in- 
viting them to assist at the ordination. The move- 
ment, at the start, was very flourishing. It soon 
became evident that the Separates carried the town. 
Mr. Coit was aged and infirm and unable to cope 
with the new and powerful influences which were at 
work. Mr. Stevens, the "New Light" preacher, 
though a young man of less than common education 
was earnest and fervent. Large numbers were at- 
tracted to his ministry. The old church and the town 
roughly set aside the disabled pastor, withdrew his 
salary, and proceeded to elect a new pastor. The 
choice finally fell upon Mr. David Rowland of Fair- 
field, who graduated from Yale in 1743. At first 
he pleased all parties in town, and he was called 
July 13, 1747. But on conference with him it was 
found that he favored the Saybrook Platform. 
While the majority of the church were pleased, the 
town, which was controlled by the votes of those 
in sympathy with the Separates, refused to proceed 
further with Mr. Rowland, but to look for a new 
candidate. Finally, however, the friends of Mr. 
Rowland succeeded in securing a majority at a 
legally called meeting, and at once proceeded to 
issue a call to Mr. Rowland, December 3, 1747. The 



1 66 The Separates 

Separates were thus outgeneraled, and Mr. Row- 
land was ordained March 15, 1748. It is said that 
his "ministry was in troublous times on account of 
the Separate movement." He accepted the call, 
fully understanding the difficulties of 'the situation. 
Mr. Stevens, who was in charge of the Separate 
church, was, as Mr. Rowland himself testified, a 
man of native ability. He died November 15, 1755. 
He was succeeded, in 1758, by Alexander Miller, 
who came from the church in Voluntown. He 
ministered, till his death, to the Separates in Plain- 
field. Both the old church, and that of the "New 
Lights/' were on the wane. In their feeble state 
there arose in both a desire for a reunion. This de- 
sire was accomplished February, 1769, by the 
settlement of Rev. John Fuller, a Separate preacher, 
as pastor of the reunited churches, in which office 
he continued to minister until his death in October, 
1777. Thus a happy reunion was effected after a 
separation of twenty-five years, and a more delight- 
ful ending of the Separate movement was reached 
in Plainfield than can be recorded of many other 
places. 

In South Killingly, as in Plainfield and else- 
where, the great revival gave birth to a Separate 
movement. The people in this section of the town 
adopted Separate principles, and were organized 
into a distinct church. This was in 1746. In 
December of that year Stephen Spalding was chosen 
clerk, and in the following February he was chosen 



Where They Were, etc, 167 

deacon. April 27, 17 4.7, say the records, "John 
Eaton was also chosen deacon, and Samuel Wads- 
worth our pastor by vote/' Mr. Wads worth ac- 
cepted, and "June 3, 1747 was set apart for fasting 
and prayer, on purpose to ordain our pastor and 
deacons/' His ordination is said to have been of 
a regular and most satisfactory character. The 
leading Separate ministers were present. Rev. 
Matthew Smith of Stonington preached the ser- 
mon; Rev. Joseph Snow of Providence gave the 
charge; Ebenezer Cleaveland of Canterbury gave the 
right hand of fellowship. Isaac Backus, the histo- 
rian, and Oliver Prentice of Stonington assisted in 
the laying on of hands. The exercises were so pro- 
longed that the ordination of deacons was deferred 
till the following week. Mr. Wadsworth continued 
in office till he died in 1762. He was followed by 
Eliphalet Wright who was ordained, says Rev. 
Robert C. Learned, May 16, 1765. He died August 
4, 1784. June 1, 1785, Israel Day was ordained 
as his successor, and continued in office till his dis- 
missal May 23, 1826, a period of forty-one years. 
During Mr. Day's ministry he was received into the 
Windham County Association by a special vote. It 
was probably during his ministry that the church, 
after many years as a Separate body, returned to 
the churches which it had left, and by their vote 
was received into their fellowship. After Mr. Day 
left the church it was supplied by various ministers. 
Rev. Joseph Ayer began preaching March, 1849, 



1 68 The Separates 

and was installed January, 1851. These Separates 
were allowed to pursue their own way without moles- 
tation, save that they were obliged to pay rates for 
the support of the established preacher. The church 
itself has long been feeble and dependent on Home 
Missionary aid. But it still remains. In 1755 this 
church appealed to the legislature for relief from 
taxation for the support of the established churches. 
Its petition was finally granted. From that time 
the case of the Separates in Connecticut was not so 
severe. 

A Separate society was also organized in Nor- 
wich Farms, now Franklin. Thomas Denison was 
ordained as its pastor October 29, 1747. He con- 
tinued in office till about 1759, after which the 
church does not appear to have existed. Of him it 
is said that he appeared at various times and places 
in the history of the Separate churches. 

In North Stonington a Separate church of thirty- 
one members was organized September 11, 1746. 
Matthew Smith was chosen as pastor, as appears 
from the records of the church, November 2J, 1746. 
He was ordained December 10, of the same year. 
August 3, 1749, he was excommunicated by a coun- 
cil. Mr. Smith's own account of the affair furnishes 
the only known reason for so summary action; 
which, by the way, was not without its parallel in 
the history of the Separate churches. He says, 
"Soon after I was ordained at Stonington I preached 
(to the people from Ephes. II, 22, in a clear line of 



Where They Were, etc. 169 

gospel truth; all on a sudden I perceived that the 
church did not give me fellowship." This caused 
some talk on that day. "We parted in great confu- 
sion," continues Mr. Smith, and adds, "We must 
see eye to eye, or my lips will be forever sealed. 
The laboring point could not be gained. I took a 
tour into the country — returned before sacrament 
day. The church desired me to proceed as usual* 
I objected and refused. Then the church called a 
council and charged me with negledt of duty." Yet 
the church said to the council, "We have nothing 
against Brother Smith, and so every man went to 
his tent. After a few Sabbaths my mouth was quite 
stopped that I could not speak for want of fellow- 
ship." Soon after Mr. Smith removed to Mansfield. 
In about a year the church in North Stonington 
called a council in the case, and summoned Mr. 
Smith to appear before it and answer to the charges 
against him. He says, "I attended it and they had 
a full hearing of the matters alledged against me. 
The Moderator turning to me says, there is some 
accursed thing with you, that you, by your softness, 
hide from us; and for which I now, in the Name of 
the Lord Jesus, declare you unworthy to have a 
standing in his house, and hereby cut you off from 
all priviledges in the same, and deliver you over to 
the buffetings of the devil." Another of the council 
declared that Mr. Smith was not fit "to walk the 
streets of the New Jerusalem," and therefore cast 
him out of the same and set him "down in the cold 



170 The Separates 

shades of Antichrist and the dark lanes of Babylon, 
to be buffeted by the devil, and eat no more of the 
children's bread." Another said, "As you are now 
excommunicated by the Holy Ghost you will soon 
feel and curse like a Devil. " And so Mr. Smith's 
ministry came to an end for reasons which do not 
appear. 

He was succeeded by Oliver Prentice who was 
ordained May 22, 1753. He died in office October 
18, 1755. Nathan Avery followed him, and was 
ordained April 25, 1759. He continued in office till 
he died September 7, 1780, after a ministry of over 
twenty-one years. After a brief interval he was 
followed by Christopher Avery who was ordained 
November 29, 1786. He ministered to the church 
till his death, July 5, 18 19, nearly thirty-three years. 
The Separates continued their organization over 
eighty years. At the end of that period they so 
far united with the old society as to build a house 
of worship for joint occupancy, with certain limit- 
ations. In 1824 Rev. Joseph Ayer was empfoyed by 
both churches to supply their alternate worship. 
The next step was the reunion of the two churches, 
March 15, 1827, and thus, after nearly eighty-one 
years of separation, (this Separate church became 
extinct as an organization. 

It may be added here that while there was no 
Separate church as such in Stonington, there was 
a new society formed, during Mr. Rossiter's minis- 
try over the First Church, called the East Society. 



Where They Were, etc, 171 

This new enterprise built a new house of worship, 
and Mr. Nathaniel Eels was settled as its pastor. 
At the death of Mr. Rossiter in October, 1762, Mr. 
Eels was chosen as his successor in the pastorate of 
the First Church. The East Society gave up their 
Separate worship and became united with the First 
Society — a union which still continues. 

A Separate church was organized in Lyme, and 
December 25, 1746, John Fuller was ordained as 
its pastor. In 1759 he removed to Norwich and 
became pastor of the Bean Hill Separate church, 
where he remained but two or three years. He after- 
wards became pastor of the united church in Plain- 
field, February, 1769, where he ministered till his 
death, October, 1777. We have no account of what 
became of the church at Lyme after he left it. 

In the summer of 1746 a very respectable part of 
the church in Scotland embraced Separate princi- 
ples, and sought certain liberties from the pastor, 
Rev. Ebenezer Devotion. He was strongly attached 
to the Saybrook Platform, and refused their re- 
quests, because he deemed them contrary to good 
order; whereupon, to the number of about twenty, 
they withdrew from the stated services of the stand- 
ing order, and held Separate meetings in private 
houses. January 22, 1746, the offending members 
were cited to appear before the pastor and the 
church, and give their reasons for separating for a 
long time from the ordinances and worship "which 
God had set up among them." Eight reasons were 



172 The Separates 

given, as follows : that this was not a church of 
Christ in regular standing; that Mr. Devotion broke 
a divine rule in signing a paper against Elisha 
Paine, and reading it to his congregation, and much 
more; that Mr. Devotion did not preach Christ ac- 
cording to their understanding, and other similar 
charges; that the church admitted unconverted per- 
sons to communion; that Mr. Devotion was not, in 
their view, a faithful minister, and that the church 
was anti-Christ; that they did not enjoy Mr. Devo- 
tion's preaching, but did Lawyer Paine's and 
others. Of course the reasons alleged were de- 
clared to be insufficient. An admonitory paper was 
prepared by vote of the church, calling upon the se- 
ceders to return, and warning them of their danger. 
A committee of fifteen was chosen to take this paper 
to the refractory members, endeavor to convince 
them of their error, and then read it to them. March 
17, 1746, the church declared that, as these persons 
had withdrawn for insufficient reasons, and had said 
defamatory things about the church and pastor, for 
which they ought to be ashamed and make humble 
acknowledgments, until such time as they manifest 
their repentance, "this church does by the command 
of our Lord Jesus, solemnly withdraw from them as 
disorderly walkers, and renounce communion with 
them as persons who cause divisions and contentions 
contrary to doctrines which we have heard and 
learned — hereby debarring them of all powers to act 
in church affairs, and depriving them of all right to 
the special ordinances of the gospel." 



Where They Were, etc. 173 

These brethren, thus excommunicated, organized 
as a Separate church in the summer of 1746. There 
were at first about twenty of them. Their organi- 
zation was known as "The Brunswick Church." 
They adopted appropriate articles and confession of 
faith. In these they declared Christ to be the in- 
stitutor of his church; the door by which all enter 
in; the head of the church, which is his spiritual 
house, and to which he gives laws and ordinances_ of 
worship, and which no human power can build or 
give laws or rules to govern it. They declared 
their belief that the Scriptures are a perfect rule to 
walk by, and the only rule of faith and practice in 
religion. They declared their belief in the Trinity, 
in foreordination, in general and special provi- 
dences, in Christ as alone possessing su- 
preme and lordly power in all the churches upon 
earth of which he is the sole Head. They affirmed 
that the government rests upon his shoulder, and that 
his sovereign power is exercised by himself in calling 
his Church, instituting its ordinances, and giving 
laws for ordering the ways of his people and his 
house. The power granted by Christ to his Church 
is exercised by them in admitting members, choos- 
ing and ordaining their own officers, removing them 
from office and from fellowship. They declared 
that the ministry of the gospel is to be supported 
apart from the "civil sword," and without coercion. 
They also declared their duty and purpose to be 
obedient to civic magistrates as God's ministers in 



174 The Separates 

civil affairs. These declarations are in keeping 
with what has been stated in a previous chapter con- 
cerning their beliefs. 

The Scotland Separate church soon gained a very 
respectable position, and drew to itself some of the 
leading members of the parish. Various proceed- 
ings were instituted against it by the consociation. 
But it kept on in its chosen way. If the members 
were persecuted and imprisoned, this only served 
to increase their zeal. The only pastor of the 
church was Mr. John Palmer, who was ordained 
May 17, 1749, and continued in his charge until his 
death, August 13, 1807, at the age of eighty-six, 
and after a pastorate of fifty-eight years. The 
Separates built a meeting-house southeast of Scot- 
land Village, known as the Brunswick meeting- 
house. They found no difficulty in supporting 
preaching by voluntary subscriptions. 

Mr. Devotion was never reconciled to this intru- 
sion into his diocese. Every Sunday he was ac- 
customed to send his negro servant with a paper for- 
bidding Mr. Palmer, or any person, to preach in the 
Brunswick meeting-house that day. This pro- 
hibition served only to increase the number of at- 
tendants upon the preaching of Mr. Palmer, and fan 
the spirit of separation and opposition into a brighter 
flame. 

After the death of Mr. Palmer the church wasted 
away till, in 1813, it was dissolved by a vote of its 
remaining members, most of whom went to the 



Where They Were, etc. 175 

church in Canterbury, where part of them lived. 
The meeting-house stood till 1850, says Rev. Robert 
C. Learned. 

The Preston Separate church, as we have already 
seen, was organized March 17, 1747. Their reasons 
for separating from the regular church, their state- 
ment of principles, their memorials to the legislature, 
praying for legal recognition and right to hold meet- 
ings, and for exemption from taxation to support 
the regular Congregational churches within whose 
parishes the memorialists lived, and the part it acted 
in appealing to the crown for relief, have been stated 
in a previous chapter. It remains to add a word 
about its origin and final disappearance. A separa- 
tion from the church in Preston City had taken 
place prior to March 14, 1744, but it did not issue in 
an organized church till three years later. De- 
cember 11, 1745, a meeting of the regular church 
was held. Rev. Hezekiah Lord of Griswold 
was present by vote of the church to as- 
sist in the deliberations. The question was 
whether the church should proceed to discipline 
"such members as offenders who separated 
from the communion of it in special ordinances, and 
attended a separate assembly on Lord's days, while 
Rev. Mr. Treat was pastor and continued to do so 
since: Voted in the affirmative." Accordingly 
the Separating brethren were summoned to appear 
at a church meeting to be held May 18, 1746. 
Twentv-three men and women were cited. Evi- 






176 The Separates 

dently they were dismissed, if not excommunicated; 
for their names appear on the roll of the Separate 
church among its charter members. 

June 18, 1747, the "church manifested their evi- 
dence" that Paul Park was chosen to the pastoral of- 
fice. He was ordained July 15, 1747. Trumbull 
says that when he was ordained "it was enjoined 
upon him, by no means (to study or premeditate what 
he should say in public, but to speak as the Spirit 
should give him utterance." This church, like all 
the Separate churches, followed the Cambridge 
Platform, "with some alterations and amendments." 
Mr. Park continued in office and kept the records of 
the church till he died June 25, 1802, in the eighty- 
second year of his age, and the fifty-fifth of his min- 
istry. With his death the church, which he had 
served so long, practically died. Meetings which 
had become irregular during his last days, became 
more so after he was gone. Occasionally, Elder 
Christopher Avery, or Deacon Amos Avery, or some 
other preacher, would hold services in the old meet- 
ing-house, or in the neighborhood. After Feb- 
ruary, 1 80 1, only two members, were received in 
1806, and three in 1807. An effort was made to 
revive the church in 181 5. Twelve new members 
were received. Benjamin F. Park was chosen 

clerk, and Amasa Standish deacon. It was voted 
to ordain Amos Avery as their minister. He was 
an aged man ; and the ceremony seems never to have 
occurred. By July 2J, 181 7, the date of the last 



Where They Were, etc. 177 

entry in the records, the church seems to have be- 
come extinct. Of the families who had worshiped 
at the Separate church, some returned to the regular 
church at Preston City, some became Methodists, 
some baptists and some Universalists. 

Elder Park preached a half-century sermon in 
1797. It is said that large audiences gathered to 
hear him. It is also said that several Sundays were 
occupied in the delivery. This can easily be be- 
lieved; for the experiences through which he, in 
common with the other Separates, passed, must have 
afforded material too abundant to be disposed of in 
one or even two discourses. It was the early cus- 
tom of the church to ordain their deacons. The 
record of the ordination of Elisha Fitch in 1765, 
found upon the book of the church, illustrates its 
early practice. "Mr. Fuller of Norwich preached 
a sermon on the occasion; then the church by their 
vote filled up their presbytery by adding Mr. Fuller 
and Deacon Avery ; then proceeded : Deacon 
Avery made the first prayer, our pastor gave the 
charge, and Mr. Fuller the last [prayer] ; the young 
deacon read a psalm; we sang and dismissed. " As 
this was one of the leading Separate churches, this 
event may be taken to represent the custom which 
usually prevailed on such occasions. It is certain 
that with them the church, composed of redeemed 
persons, was the final authority. This ordination 
of Deacon Fitch reads like an echo from the sixth 
chapter of the Acts. Elder Park was a descendant 



12 



178 The Separates 

of Thomas Park, the first deacon of the church at 
Preston City. 

A small Separate society was gathered in the 
southeastern part of the North Parish, New Lon- 
don, now Montville, in 1747, during the ministry 
of Rev. David Jewett. Like some other of the 
"New Lights," they held the doctrine of baptism by 
immersion, but were opposed to close communion. 
Their first leader was Dyer Hyde. He succeeded 
in drawing away many from the regular Congrega- 
tional churches to which they belonged. May 17, 
1750, Joshua Morse, a resident of the North Parish, 
was ordained their elder. They erected a house of 
worship which outlasted their organization. They 
kept together about thirty years. In 1779 Elder 
Morse removed to Sandisfield, Massachusetts, and 
the church which he had kept together so long, soon 
ceased to exist. Out of the remnant of it was or- 
ganized, in 1788, whaft came to be known as the 
Palmer Baptist church. 

There was a secession from the First Society of 
Windham about 1747. If organized at all, it did 
not have a long life. Backus, the historian, says 
that Elihu Morse, (Elisha Marsh, says Miss Lamed, 
who is probably right,) was ordained there October 
7, 1747, and that he afterwards became a Baptist. 
Probably this ended whatever there had been at 
Windham as a Separate society. The Baptist fold 
proved a convenient and an agreeable refuge for 
many Separates on the breaking up of their own 
churches. 



Where They Were, etc. 179 

What is now the South Congregational Church in 
Middletown, Conn., was organized at Wether sfield, 
January 7, 1747. It was formed, says the pastor, 
Rev. Frederick W. Green, "as a Separatist, or as they 
preferred to be called, Strict Congregational church." 
Like almost every Separate church, it grew out of 
the Great Awakening. Mr. Green traces its origin 
back directly to the preaching of Whitefield on the 
South Green in Middletown, during his first visit in 
New England. Its original members came from 
towns "all the way from Suffield on the north, to 
Middletown on the south." There were a number 
of towns along the Connecticut River, where the 
"fire of Separatism" seemed to burn, where the Say- 
brook Platform, and its Semi-Presbyterianism, and 
the Half- Way Covenant were repudiated, and where 
a consecrated, rather than educated ministry, was 
emphasized. 

This church, which was formed at Wethersfield, 
seems not to have been an offshoot from any other 
church, but an independent movement, with a mem- 
bership scattered up and down the Connecticut 
River. Yet several, if not all, of the original mem- 
bers, twenty or thirty in number, separated from the 
established churches in the towns where they lived. 
It seems to have been gathered at the first in the 
house of Mr. Ebenezer Frothingham, who was a 
leading spirit in the movement, and who was or- 
dained, by the church itself, as its first pastor, Octo- 
ber 28, 1747. The spirit which animated these 



180 The Separates 

people was as old, they believed, as the prophets, 
apostles and martyrs. Nathan Cole said, "Why, 
look in the Bible, and you will find that all the 
prophets of the Old Testament and all the apostles 
in the New Testament and even Christ himself, the 
Son of God, with the martyrs, were all Separatists." 
Frothingham, the first pastor of the Middletown 
church, states the case in his book, "The Key of 
Knowledge," as follows: "The main thing which 
I have in view ... is free liberty of con- 
science, the right of thinking, choosing and acting 
for oneself in the matters of religion, which respect 
God and conscience, and to contend for this impor- 
tant privilege, I nor any other person should not be 
ashamed to do." 

The South Church in Middletown thus had its be- 
ginnings in Strict Congregational methods ; 
methods which were quite in keeping with the usages 
of the present. Of the early years in Wethersfield 
little is recorded. It is not known whether or not 
the law compelling them to pay for the support of 
the regular church was so rigidly enforced that they 
could not endure it. "But for some reasons," says 
Mr. Green, "several of the leading brethren moved 
to New York, and at the end of about seven years' 
struggle with the authorities it was thought best to 
remove Mr. Frothingham's home, and with it the 
seat of his ministry to Middletown, and here he was 
re-installed over them in 1754." This location may 
have been chosen because there were more members 



Where They Were, etc. 181 

of the church in Middletown, and because the op- 
position of the town and church was not so violent 
as in Wethersfield. During the first part of Mr. 
Frothingham's ministry in Middletown, the church 
still worshiped in his house. His pastorate con- 
tinued forty-five years. He, like Solomon Paine of 
Canterbury, stood high in the esteem of the churches 
of the Separation. 

Although it started out as a Separate church, it 
is to-day one of the leading churches of the Congre- 
gational order. Rev. Robert C. Learned says that it 
was reorganized in 1816. The only churches still 
remaining which were organized as Separate bodies 
are the church in South Killingly, the church in 
Torrington, according to Dr. McEwen, the Benefi- 
cent Church, Providence, R. I., and the South Con- 
gregational Church, Middletown. Of the last the 
pastor says, "Which still in its financial and corpo- 
rate capacity is known as the Strict Congregational 
Society of Middletown." Dr. George Leon Walk- 
er, speaking of the final issue of the Separate move- 
ment says, "Some of them returned to communion 
with the churches from which they came out. A 
few of them — like the Second Church in Middle- 
town, Connecticut, which still retains the name of 
'The Church in (the Strict Congregational Society' — 
developed into strong churches in connection with 
the general Congregational fellowship. A few passed 
over into the Baptist communion." The remainder 
died. It may also be added here, that these churches 



1 82 The Separates 

preserved pure and simple Congregationalism, and 
rescued it from the Presbyterianizing tendency of 
such documents as the Say brook Platform. If for 
nothing else, modern Congregational churches owe 
them a debt of gratitude for keeping alive their his- 
toric polity, in the midst of ecclesiastical influences 
setting strongly toward central authority, and away 
from the strict autonomy of the local church. 

Mr. Joshua Hempstead says in his diary that a 
Separate church was formed in East Lyme, over 
which Bbenezer Mack was ordained as pastor, Jan- 
uary 12, 1749. They erected a house of worship 
in 1755. Mr. Mack and a majority of his church 
became Baptists, and were received into fellowship 
with other churches of that order, although they 
continued the practice of open communion until 
1795. This was the origin of what is now known 
as the First Baptist Church of East Lyme. 

April 18, 1750, Joseph Hastings was ordained 
pastor of a Separate church which was then organ- 
ized in Suffield. They built a house of worship in 
1762. The church soon became .divided. Mr. 
Hastings became a Baptist, and, in 1769, pastor of 
the Baptist church in Suffield, into which a portion 
of his Separate church had been organized. The 
remainder of the Separates then chose Mr. Israel 
Holley as their pastor, and he was ordained in that 
office, June 29, 1763. He was afterwards dis- 
missed, and preached in Granby and Cornwall. This 
church came to an end about 1784. The members 



Where They Were, etc. 183 

who had not already become Baptists, returned to 
the old church. 

A Separate Society seems to have been formed in 
Colchester. Jabez Jones was ordained as its pastor. 
It is probable that this separation was due to the re- 
fusal of Mr. Little, the pastor of the regular church 
in Colchester, to allow Mr. Pomeroy of Hebron, a 
neighboring town, to preach in his church. A 
lecture had been appointed for Mr. Pomeroy, ap- 
parently with Mr. Little's consent. Supposing that 
he was going to the aid of a brother minister, Mr. 
Pomeroy set out from home. For some reason Mr. 
Little forbade his going into the meeting-house. A 
large congregation had assembled. Mr. Pomeroy 
conceived it to be his duty to address them, thinking 
that some might be reached and saved. Accord- 
ingly he retired a little from the meeting-house and 
preached to a large and attentive company. Com- 
plaint was made against him for preaching contrary 
to the law, and for seven years he was deprived of 
his stated salary. It is not certain that this was 
(the beginning of causes which operated to bring 
about the organization of a Separate church at Col- 
chester. But it might have been. At any rate, 
it was one of many like instances, showing the utter 
lack of religious liberty in Connecticut, from 1742 
to 1784, which frequently did result in such protests 
as separation from the churches of the standing or- 
der. 

The date of the formation of the Separate church 



1 84 The Separates 

in Enfield is not certain. But there are evidences 
which seem to point to its existence as early as 1751. 
The causes which led to separations from the estab- 
lished churches elsewhere, were operative in En- 
field as early as that year. There is, therefore, rea- 
son to believe that the separation took place then. 
The evidence which seems to establish this date, 
1751, beyond a reasonable question, is furnished by 
correspondence, recently discovered, between the 
Separate church in Enfield and the Separate church 
in Canterbury. Five letters were written from En- 
field. The first bears date of "November 28, Anno 
175 1 ". It begins "to the Church of Christ at 

Canterbury (greeten) Beloved in the Lord for 
help I wright to you by an agreement with the 
Church in Enfield." The letter goes on to state the 
difficulties in whose adjustment the assistance of the 
church in Canterbury is sought. It says, "There 
is the mystery of enecyty Got into this Church 
where as if it is not Searched out it will Destroy this 
body of Saints as a Church here." It is signed by 
Joseph Markham. The meeting was to take place 
December 18. Two days later, "Solomon paine, 
paster of the Church of Christ at Canterbury, and 
thomas Stevens paster of the Church of Chrisft at 
plainfield" gave their decision on the case in ques- 
tion. It was addressed "to the Church at Enfield, 
greeting wishing grase, &c." It was signed by 
Solomon Paine and Thomas Stevens. Three other 
letters of a similar character show, not only that the 



Where They Were, etc. 185 

Separate church in Enfield was in existence as early 
as 1 75 1, but also that it was seriously rent by inter- 
nal dissensions, and that the dream of the Separates 
for a pure church was as yet far from realization. 

Nathaniel Collins was the first pastor of this 
church. He was a son of Rev. Nathaniel Collins 
who, in 1699, had become pastor of the regular 
church in Enfield. The oldest formal document of 
this church bears date of April 13, 1762. A meet- 
ing was held "on that day at the house of 
the Widow Abigail Markham in order to consult 
matters relative to the Glorious Redeemers vizable 
Kingdom and interest in the world." A consider- 
able number were granted permission "to Renew and 
come into Covenant with God and one with an- 
other." This meeting was adjourned to April 2*] 
to consider other matters affecting the church. One 
was as follows : "Some consideration Pas d be- 
tween the church and Assembly and our brother 
Nattf Collins of Westfield who was then present 
for that Purpose by our Desire Relative to his Com- 
ing and settling with us and Improving his gifts as 
god shall inable him." On the 10th of May follow- 
ing, "the church on their Part Plumptly Desired him 
to come to their help as above mentioned and he on 
his Part manifested Resignation to the Will of God 
in that Respect." August 20 the church was again 
assembled to adjust certain difficulties; it seemed to 
be in hot water most of the time. At that time Mr. 
Collins "made a gospel Dedication of him selfe to us 



1 86 The Separates 

as on his part Ready to Comply with that Call 
Which Seamed so Evidently from God and Man." 
At the same meeting a declaration was made which 
reads like a statement of doctrine. Probably this 
is the date of the beginning of Mr. Collins' ministry. 
The statement by the church, or renewal of their 
covenant, is as follows : — 

We do now as in the Presence of the Great Eter- 
nal Omnicient god who Knows the Secrets of all 
hearts and in the presence of angels and men ac- 
knowledge our Selves to be under the most Solemn 
Covenant with the Lord (to be for him and no other 
and we Do now Renew our Covenant with him. 

i. We take the one only Living and True god 
to be our god one God in three Persons the father — 
Son and holy Ghost. 

2. we take the Holy Scriptures old and New 
Testament to be the Revel d mind and will of god 
and promise Through the helpe of the holy Spirit to 
make them the Rule of oure Life acknowledging 
ourselves by Nature children of wrath and oure hope 
of mercy with god is only through the Riteousness 
of Jesus Christ apprehended by Faith. 

3. We now Call Heaven and Earth to Witness 
that without ye last reserve we Doo give up oure 
Selves Soule and Body and all that we have and are 
to one god through Jesus Christ to be Entirely at his 
Disposal both oure Selves oure Names and Estates as 
god shall See most for his own glory and that we 
will Doo Faithfully by the help of gods Spirit what 
So ever our Conscience Influenced by the word and 
Spirit of God Directs us (to be Duty though it be 
Never so Contrary to Nature both as to Duties to 



Where They Were, etc. 187 

god and man, and we do also by the assistance of 
Divine grace unitedly give up oure Selves one to an- 
other in Covenant promising by the Help of gods 
grace to act Towards one another as Brethren in 
Christ watching over one another in ye Love of god 
and espicially to watch against all Jesting Lightness 
and foolish Talking which is not Convenient and 
everything that Does not Become the Followers of 
the holy Lamb of god and to Seek ye good of each 
other and of the Church universal for the glory of 
God and to hold Communion together in the Wor- 
ship of god and in the ordinances and Discipline of 
Christ in this Church of God According to Christ's 
visible . . . [not legible]. And submitting 
oure selves to the Discipline of Christ in this Church 
as part of his mystical body according as we shall 
be guided by the word and spirit of god, and by help 
of Divine grace Still to be looking for more light 
from god which is contained in the sacred script- 
ures beleaving that their is greater mysteries to be 
solved and further Light to Shine in ye Church be- 
yond what they have ever yet attained to. Looking 
and watching for the glorious Day when the Lord 
Jesus will Take to himself his great power and Reign 
from Sea to Sea and from ye rivers to ye ends of 
the Earth and this Covenant we make with the free 
and full consent of our soules Beleaving [not leg- 
ible] ratified in heaven before the throne of god 
and the Lamb. 

Even so come Lord Jesus Amen and Amen. 
Neh. 9-38 — and chap 10-28-29, 2<* Chron. 15-12 
Isa. 5-5-" 

This remarkable document is signed by fifty per- 
sons, male and female, with the name of Nathaniel 



1 88 The Separates 

Collins, who was henceforth the pastor, at the head 
of the column. This is the earliest known paper in 
existence which points directly to the organization 
of a Separate church in Enfield. But as it was de- 
clared to be a renewal of "our Covenant with him," 
it clearly points to an organization already effected, 
and justifies the view already stated that the church 
had been in existence since 1751. It seems rea- 
sonable also to infer that this restatement of faith, 
and renewal of Covenant, was made August 20, 
1762, upon the occasion of the church's taking to 
itself Mr. Collins as pastor. 

As a statement of belief it sheds additional light 
upon the views held by the Separates of Connecticut. 
As far as it goes its orthodoxy cannot be ques- 
tioned. Its Trinitarianism is pronounced. Its be- 
lief in the Word of God as a rule of faith and prac- 
tice is unequivocal. The covenant promises all 
that could be asked. The difficulty was, as appears 
from frequent councils called to settle disputes, they 
did not live up to it. These internal dissensions, by 
which this church was torn, hastened its decline. 

Seven years after the above reorganization the 
Enfield Separates petitioned the legislature for re- 
lief from taxation ito support the established church, 
and for legal right to exist as a religious society. 
The memorial was granted in May, 1770, and so, af- 
ter more than twenty years of existence the Separates 
of Enfield had legal status as The Second Society 
of Enfield. The memorial was opposed by the First 



Where They Were, etc. 189 

Society; but in vain. The legislature had already- 
granted a similar memorial of the church in South 
Killingly, and adopted a more liberal policy towards 
those who dissented from the established order. 

Eighty names were affixed to the memorial, show- 
ing a considerable growth within the seven years 
since the reorganization referred to. But their 
trials as to the support of the gospel were not at an 
end. It was easier to promise than to pay. The 
Separates were not so very unlike other Christians. 
So they, like other churches, had to have meetings 
and they chose committees "to Treat with those Per- 
sons that Refuse to pay (their Respective Sums," or 
"to Collect the Nessessaries of Life for the Rev d Mr. 
Collins." This was as late as 1777. The theory 
of a gospel supported by the free gifts of the people 
was one thing; to get these gifts was quite an- 
other thing. And the Separates were, some of 
them, at least, compelled to resort to the very 
methods against which they had protested. At any 
rate, they found that absolutely free-will offerings 
did not meet the necessities of the case. After mak- 
ing proper allowance for the financial straits which 
were due to commercial and other disturbances of 
the Revolutionary War, it is evident from the records 
of the church, as Dr. Means well remarks, "that 
the members of this (the Enfield) church had not 
attained to their own professed ideal — that the main- 
tenance of a church should be voluntary. Their 
theory in this respect was in advance of their time, 



190 The Separates 

while their practice failed to exemplify their theory." 
As we have seen, the First Parish opposed 
granting the memorial of the Separates. One 

Peter Reynolds was chosen to represent it "at the 
Assembly to Defend against said petition." Bu't 
not only was the second, or Separate, Society legal- 
ized by act of the legislature; also a portion of the 
land originally set apart for the support of the min- 
istry in Enfield was taken from the first 1 society 
and given to this. Naturally there was more or 
less of friction, but the relations between the two 
churches were as friendly as could have been ex- 
pected under the circumstances. 

The first meeting of the new society after the leg- 
islature had granted it legal existence, was held 
November 22, 1770. But the future was not all 
smooth. Social problems perplexed them as well 
as other churches. There were the petty jealousies 
which arose from the "common practice of assigning 
seats in the meeting house in accordance with the 
supposed rank or worth of the Congregation." As 
was the custom in other churches, the duty of "seat- 
ing the meeting house" was assigned to a commit- 
tee. 

How long Mr. Collins served as the pastor of the 
Enfield Separate church we do not know. There 
are no explicit records concerning the settlement of 
ministers to succeed him. There were others, of 
whom Rev. George Atwell was one. It is likely 



Where They Were, etc. 191 

that there were intervals of considerable duration 
when the church had no pastor. The one bond 
which held them together was "their common feel- 
ing of opposition to the First Church.'' That such 
was their bond of fellowship is demonstrated by the 
fact that, when all reason for further hostility was 
removed through their own legal incorporation as a 
church, then radical elements of discord and disrup- 
tion appeared among themselves — elements w^hich 
ended in the extinction of the church. 

From this Separate church a number withdrew, 
who joined the Shaker Community which was being 
formed in 1786. Joseph Markham, who seems to 
have been a disturbing factor among the Separates, 
was among those who withdrew. The remaining 
members of the church lived a checkered life. Dis- 
putes and divisions destroyed their spirituality and 
very materially weakened the force of the church. 
After a varied life of over fifty years this Separate 
Society of Enfield merged into a Baptist church in 
1806. Some of the original Separates moved from 
town; others died. Five men who signed the 
memorial of 1769 returned to the church from which 
they had gone out more than thirty years before. In 
1806 the land and church and parsonage of the 
Separates became the property of Ithe Baptists. In 
1842, when the Baptist society ceased to exist, the 
property passed into the hands "of what is now 
known as the Adventist Society of Enfield.' ' Thus 



192 The Separates 

ended this chapter in the story of the Separate move- 
ment in Enfield.* 

April 15, 1 75 1, Alexander Miller was ordained 
over the Separate church in Voluntown. He min- 
istered to it till his removal to Plainfield about 1758, 
when its members returned to the church which they 
had left. This united church is known as "the 
church in Voluntown and Sterling." 

In North Groton, now Ledyard, there was a small 
body of Separates. At what time the society was 
gathered we do not definitely know. But Rev. 
Mr. Tuttle, in a sermon preached on the forty-eighth 
anniversary of his settlement in Ledyard, says it was 
probably sometime between 1742 and 1748. Na- 
thaniel Brown, Jr., probably a native of the town, 
was ordained as pastor of the church, November 14, 
1 75 1, and held the office about four years. His suc- 
cessor was Park Allyn, who was born in Ledyard in 
1733. Mr. Tuttle says, "Elder Allyn was, by a 
council, deposed from the ministry on account of al- 
leged immorality, and his church was left to be scat- 
tered. Some of the members were living when I 
came (in 181 1) to this place, and a few of them 
united with this church after it was formed." Rev. 

*I am indebted for the principal facts relative to the Sepa- 
rate church in Enfield to Dr. Oliver William Means, pastor 
of the First Church in Enfield, whose "sketch of the Strict 
Congregational Church in Enfield" gives the complete story of 
the movement from 1751 to 1842, and is a valuable contribu- 
tion to the ecclesiastical history of Connecticut. It is pub- 
lished by the Hartford Seminary Press, and the reader is re- 
ferred to it for details which could not be given here. 



Where They Were, etc. 193 

John Avery says, "The Separate church edifice stood 
about a mile west of the Congregational. It was 
removed to Gales Ferry in 1803; and for more than 
fifty years, standing where the Methodist church 
now stands, was occupied by the Methodist people 
as their place of worship. The old church edifice, 
which was about as large, I think, as an old-time 
country schoolhouse, was standing at Gales Ferry 
and used as a barn several years after I began my 
ministry in Ledyard," in 1881. 

Mr. Allyn died, February 13, 1804. After he 
was deposed the church does not seem to have had 
any pastor, or even stated supply. It kept along 
for some time, probably till about 181 1. But just 
how long its organization continued we do not 
know; for if it ever had any records, they have not 
come down to us. It is likely that neighboring 
Separate ministers preached for it occasionally. 
Those who did not join Mr. Turtle's church became 
scattered. 

In this connection it may be said that about 1745- 
50 Elder Park Avery, a Separate minister, fitted up 
a large room in the house, on Poquonock plain, 
which James Avery had built in 1656, and used it 
for public worship. "There he and the church 

which he had gathered held public service for a great 
many years." When these gatherings ceased the 
Separate worship came to an end in Groton. 

A Separate Society was formed in the "Long So- 
ciety," Preston. In her history of Norwich, Miss 



13 



194 The Separates 

Caulkins says, "Meetings were held in that society, 
but it is not known that a church was organized." 
Since she wrote, the original records of the Preston 
Separate church have come to light. In these 
records, under date of May 17, 1752, it is stated 
that a leltter had been received from the Long So- 
ciety, desiring the Preston church to send messen- 
gers "to assist in ordaining a pastor." June 5, 
this messenger reported that "The Evidence 
was Clear that Jonathan Storey Was Called of 
God and Chosen by ye Church to y e office 
of a Pasltor who was ordained by y e laying on of 
hands by y e Churches' Presbyters: namely: Elder 
Hide [Norwich Town] : Eld r John Palmer [Scot- 
land] : Eld Paul Parke and Joseph Elderkin Broth- 
er." This record points to a church in the Long 
Society and fixes the date of Mr. Story's ordina- 
tion between May 17 and June 5, 1752. August 
5, 1752, the Preston church met with the church 
in the Long Society, to consider the case of Sam- 
uel Gore who had communed with the former 
church but refused to do so more, giving as a 
reason his disbelief in infant baptism. Two years 
later the Preston church sent delegates to the 
church in the Long Society on the occasion of the 
ordination of a deacon. May 21, 1758, the Preston 
Church again responded to a letter from the church 
in the Long Society, and sent messengers "to Give 
them advice Respecting there Broken Scatred Con- 
dition." May 19, 1765, the Preston church records 
the admission of Mrs. Nathaniel Giddings to its 



Where They Were, etc. 195 

communion. She had formerly been a member of 
the Separate church in the Long Society, "and when 
that O 1 * 1 was broek and Dissolved she with others 
were Recommended by a Council to any C hh they 
were minded to join with of y e same Constitution." 
These minutes show conclusively that a Separate 
church was organized in the western part of Pres- 
ton, known then as East Norwich, or the Long 
Society; that its pastor was ordained in 1752; that 
it existed about thirteen years; and that its remain- 
ing members were scattered among the neighbor- 
ing Separate churches, upon the recommendation of 
the Council that dissolved the church. This whole 
proceeding, and the records of the Preston church 
touching its sister church, have an exceedingly 
sftrong flavor of modern Congregationalism. 

There was also a Separate movement at Bozrah, 
then called Norwich Plains. Bliss Willoughby was 
probably ordained its pastor in 1756. Of its fur- 
ther history we have no knowledge. The move- 
ment was of short duration. 

A Separate church was organized in Somers in 
1769. The First Church, on the death of Mr. Leav- 
itt, in 1 76 1, became greatly distracted, and was 
divided. Part became Separates and built a meeting- 
house. Mr. Ely became their pastor from 1769 to 
1774. He afterwards was prominent in Shay's re- 
bellion in western Massachusetts, and died in 
prison. For thirteen years after the death of Mr. 
Leavitt the First Church was pastorless. In Au- 



196 The Separates 

gust, 1774, Dr. Backus became the pastor. Under 
him the two churches became one again, the Sepa- 
rates returning in great harmony to the fold 
whence they had gone out. 

In Prospect, a Separate church was organized be- 
tween 1770 and 1780. Benjamin Beach was pastor 
for several years. In 1798 the present church was 
formed. The Separates were unable to support the 
gospel, alone, and most of them united with the 
new church. The old Separate meeting-house was 
occupied, at first, by the new society, having been 
repaired in 1801. 

In 1786 a Strict Congregational society was 
formed in Torrington by several members who 
withdrew from the regular church. They com- 
menced the erection of a house of worship. In 
March, 1787, by vote of the church, Lemuel Haynes, 
a colored preacher, a man of great shrewdness and 
wit, and who ministered to various white congre- 
gations for about fifty years, was chosen pastor. 
Though not installed he held this office about two 
years. In 1791, by the aid of a council the two 
churches adopted new articles of faith and a cove- 
nant, and were reunited. 

In Bethlehem, in Coventry and in New Milford 
the spirit of Separation manifested itself to some 
extent, but not ito such a degree as to crystalize into 
Separate societies. In Haddam there were move- 
ments towards Separation. A society was formed 
in 1785. In 1792 they professed Baptist principles, 



Where They Were, etc. igy 

?nd were received into the fellowship of that de- 
nomination. 

These are the principal instances of separation 
from the standing order. Several returned to the 
fellowship of the churches from which they had 
gone out. Three still remain in Connecti- 
cut: South Killingly, the South Church in 
Middletown, and the church in Torrington. Of 
the last two Dr. McEwen says that they 
"as churches . . . became Separates," but 
soon reverted to their original connection with 
Congregationalists. It seems, however, that the 
church in Middletown was gathered as a Separate 
church, as we have already seen. In several cases 
the church became Baptist. In one or two in- 
stances a Universalist church resulted. In one case 
a colony of Shakers was the final issue. The 
church in Canterbury, it is claimed, became Sepa- 
rate as a church. But it became extinct. Only 
two or three survived into the ninteenth century. 
That in Preston seems to have been the last to dis- 
appear. The church in Canterbury, during its com- 
paratively brief life, seems to have been the leading 
church of the order. 

In Massachusetts, as we have seen, a number of 
the Separates embraced the Baptist faith. Backus 
says that "more than threescore members of the 
Separate church in Sturbridge, including all their 
officers were baptized in 1749" In September of 
the same year Elder Ebenezer Moulton of Brim- 



198 The Separates 

field baptized several in Bridgewater and in Rayn- 
ham, who left the Separate churches in those towns. 
He adds that Baptist elders "baptized many in the 
Separate churches of Connecticut, and it seemed as 
though all those churches would become Baptists.'' 
But, as we have seen, it was impossible for the Sepa- 
rates, who believed in sprinkling and infant bap- 
tism, to unite with the Baptists, who did not be- 
lieve in these ordinances, and so there were few 
cases in which Separate churches went over to that 
communion. 

A council of Separate churches was held at South 
Killingly, September 19, 1781, to agree upon mat- 
ters of discipline, a confession of faith, and other 
questions pertaining to the welfare of the churches. 
This seems to have been the inauguration of the 
custom of holding yearly meetings on the third 
Thursday in September. It was also, without doubt, 
the beginning of the "Strict Congregational Con- 
vention of Connecticut," which, as we have seen, 
exercised jurisdiction in Long Island till a conven- 
tion was organized there in 1791. The decay of the 
churches which comprised it soon brought an end 
to the convention. As but two or three societies 
survived the century, it is reasonable to conclude 
that the Convention did not. The last general meet- 
ing, of which the records of the Preston church 
make mention, was held in 1797. 



VII 

CONCLUSION 

The foregoing chapters tell the story of a relig- 
ious movement which took place chiefly between 
1740 and 1755. A few societies were former later, 
but they did not 1 reach any considerable size or 
influence. The movement, for reasons which will 
suggest themselves, never spread far beyond its 
original limits, within which it was mainly confined. 
As has been seen, it began in eastern Connecticut 
as an indirect result of the great revival; as a direct 
protest, on the part of earnest men and women, 
against the loose practice and discipline of the 
churches established under the Saybrook Platform. 
The movement was attended with not a few extrava- 
gances; yet we cannot but sympathize with the 
motive that was behind it. The Separates believed, 
with the early Fathers of New England, and with 
Hooker of Hartford, and with Davenport of New 
Haven, that only regenerate persons were eligible 
to church estate. They therefore stopped all who 
sought admission thereto, at the door of the church, 
to enquire as to their religious experience, and as 
to the evidence which they gave of regenerate char- 
acter. In this important particular the established 
churches, as we have seen, had grown exceedingly 
remiss; and this remissness the Separates could not 



199 



200 The Separates 

endure. Dr. Oliver W. Means, in his story of the 
Strict Congregational Church of Enfield, says, "A 
careful study of the inner life of the Separatist 
Church of Enfield will lead to the conclusion that, in 
common with other churches of the same order, this 
church stood in stubborn opposition to certain 
worldly practices that had gathered about the estab- 
lished churches of that day." 

The Separates also believed, as is shown by (their 
declarations of belief and practice, that Christ alone, 
and not any civil power, of any sort whatsoever, 
was the source of all authority in the church, and 
therefore that the church, as his body, was com- 
petent to manage and direct its local affairs, without 
the interference of the State. Here they certainly 
occupied ground held by the Separatists of Serooby, 
more than a century and a quarter before, by the 
Fathers of New England, and by the Congregational 
churches of to-day. In both these contentions we 
must take sides with them as against the civil 
power and the churches arrayed against them. 
They simply stood on the ground on which the 
churches of New England were originally organ- 
ized. The fact that almost, if not quite, without 
exception, these churches adopted the Cambridge 
Platform of 1648, proves that their ecclesiastical 
polity was an expression of primitive New England 
Congregationalism. And as their idea of the church 
was in so complete accord with views so generally 
prevalent now, we must admit that they were, at 



Conclusion 201 

least in this one respect, a hundred years in ad- 
vance of their time. Their break with the old 
Puritan idea of a parish, which was a legacy in- 
herited from the State establishments of Europe, 
was none too emphatic and came none too soon. 
A civil body, organized to manage the affairs of 
Christ's visible Church, was their peculiar aversion; 
and with good reason. The modern movement to 
enable churches to manage their own material 
affairs, without the intervention of a parish, often 
constituted of men of the world, in no sympathy 
with the Church, is only an effective expression of 
the idea of the Separates of Connecticut, more than 
a hundred and fifty years ago. 

It is in Puritanism in New England that we find 
the first beginnings of some of the views which 
are perpetuated in modern Unitarianism. First 
was the view, which found formal expression in 
the Half- Way Covenant, that a personal experi- 
ence of the new birth was not necessary to church 
membership if the life were outwardly correct. 
Next was the view which magnified the parish at 
the expense of the church. The Separates preserved 
the traditional theories and Congregationalism of 
the Pilgrims, and insisted that the church, with- 
out a secular helm, the parish, was autonomous in 
both financial and spiritual management. In this 
respect also they were in advance of their day. 

The Saybrook Platform, as it was endorsed by 
the Connecticut legislature, October, 1708, was ac- 



202 The Separates 

companied by the toleration act, of the previous 
May, entitled "for the ease of such as soberly dis- 
sent." But, as we have seen, this act was repealed, 
in May, 1743, and all liberty was gone for all who 
could show nothing to differentiate them from Con- 
gregationalists or Presbyterians. The ecclesiastical 
establishment in Connecticut was as rigorous and 
unsparing as that from which the Fathers had fled 
in 1608 and 1630. It continued till 1784, when 
the Saybrook Platform, by act of the legislature, 
ceased to be binding. It cannot be denied that the 
Separate churches were, in their simple ecclesias- 
tical polity, more in accord with the democratic 
character of our modern Congregational churches, 
than those which adopted the Presbyterial provi- 
sions of the Saybrook Platform. The name which 
they chose for themselves — Strict Congregational 
Churches — shows that they claimed to ad- 
here strictly to the democratic form of church or- 
ganization, while they charged against the State 
churches, and not without reason, that they were 
partly Presbyterial. 

In view of these facts the collapse of the whole 
movement within half a century creates surprise, 
and awakens the suspicion that there was in it some 
fatal structural weakness. A movement in which 
was so much to commend could not so completely 
disappear, leaving scarcely anything but its history 
behind it, unless there were some radical defects 
in it. The course of the Separates was in 



Conclusion 203 

open defiance of law, and, as we have seen 
brought upon them most bitter persecution, 
as well as arrayed against them all the powerful 
social influence of the established churches. 
But their decay was due to deeper causes, inherent 
in the movement itself. Persecution and opposition 
did not crush out the Separatists of Scrooby, nor 
the Puritans who settled around Massachusetts Bay. 
Further, the most rapid decline of the Separates 
of Connecticut dates from the year when the legis- 
lature grudgingly granted the petition of the church 
at South Killingly to be relieved from taxation to 
support the minister of the regular church. But the 
relief came too late. Their original leaders were 
dead in most cases, and they were cast down by 
discouragement. They were torn by internal dis- 
sensions. In many cases there were irreconcilable 
differences upon the question of baptism, which 
could have but one issue. Soon after the death of 
Solomon Paine the Canterbury church ceased. In 
twenty years the Mansfield church had run its 
course. In 1806 the Enfield church had come to an 
end. The Preston church owed itself to Paul Park, 
its pastor for over fifty years. Its length of life 
and growth were due to his industry and influence. 
Though it existed several years after his death, 
living an irregular, lingering life, till about 18 17, 
it practically died with him. 

Something is radically wrong in any church 
whose life and vigor are so dependent upon any per- 



204 The Separates 

son. Several causes may be pointed out in the 
Separate movement, which limited its influence and 
its life. It often began and continued in a kind of 
emotional excess. These people confounded relig- 
ious experience with certain sensuous emotions, and 
judged the former by the degree of the latter. They 
regarded certain bodily contortions as necessary 
evidences of the presence and the workings of the 
Spirit. They measured zeal by the violence of one's 
action, and accused ministers, who were moderate 
in their style of preaching, with lacking unction. 
The doctrine of perfection, in its objectionable, 
fleshly form, crept in among some of them. In 
some cases they went to even greater excesses than 
when Davenport was their leader. Some of them, 
says Tracy, became, "in their own esteem too holy 
to receive the ordinances from any such minister 
as was then on earth, and therefore baptized each 
other." In some cases, narrated by Backus, they 
ignored the obligation of the marriage vows, and 
scandalous results were notorious. Happily, such 
instances were rare. But those which existed 
showed the danger of a false zeal, which defeats 
itself. The extravagances of the movement, and 
in which those concerned in it persisted, helped to 
deprive it of much of the power and influence which 
otherwise would have attended it. 

The weakness of the movement was, in a meas- 
ure, attributable to another cause. We refer to 
the illiteracy and lack of education on the part of 



Conclusion 205 

both its leaders and its rank and file. The charge 
given to Paul Park, when he was ordained over the 
Preston church, not to premeditate what he should 
say, when preaching, illustrates the prevalent spirit 
of the Separates. They believed that human learn- 
ing, especially as related to declaring the truth of 
God, was a snare and a delusion, liable to lead men 
into error. They professed, therefore, to rely solely 
and directly upon the enlightenment of the Holy 
Ghost. This contempt of learning, not only in the 
people themselves, but also in their leaders, brought 
forth the natural fruits of ignorance, coupled with 
false zeal and a certain degree of superstition. It 
resulted, often, in a strange misunderstanding of the 
Bible. Their leaders were usually men taken from 
their own membership, and ordained as their pas- 
tors, without any preparation for their work. As 
a consequence they usually attracted to themselves 
the less stable portion of the community, and those 
persons who love to run after novelties in religion. 
Naturally, their hold was not strong upon a vigor- 
ous and permanent life. Nor were they able always 
to exert a commanding influence in the communi- 
ties where they were planted. There were, of 
course, here and there exceptions. But these were 
of a character to prove the rule. 

Their claim to what they called "the key of knowl- 
edge," was still another source of weakness. By 
this they meant that Christ had given them the gift 
of the Spirit in such measure that they could infalli- 



206 The Separates 

bly tell a Christian from one who is not, as readily 
as "a sheep may be known from a dog/' and that 
those only "with whom they held communion in the 
inward actings of their own souls were Christians." 
Doubtless there are tests, given in the Word of 
God, by which disciples may be known. But the 
fact that councils were called with great frequency, 
by many of the Separate churches, to settle cases 
of discipline, proves that sometimes their "key of 
knowledge" did not fit the lock. A good many of 
these churches, like the one in Enfield, were per- 
petually in trouble, because the brethren did not 
dwell together in unity. Besides, their claims to an 
intuitive knowledge of Christian character led them 
into great extravagances in church discipline. Their 
excessive zeal for a pure church often overdid the 
matter. Their tests were frequently more sentiment- 
al than real. An excess of joy, an outward view of 
Christ, visions which some of them claimed to have, 
and similar proofs were applied and depended 
on by them, to determine whether men had been 
born again. The success of this method is best told 
by their oft recurring cases of discipline, which kept 
churches in a constant turmoil. Miss Larned, in her 
history of Windham County, says, "But it was when 
turned upon themselves that the 'Key of Knowledge' 
did the greatest injury. 'Absolute certainty' of the 
spiritual condition of another on admission to the 
church membership did not prevent extreme dis- 
trust afterward. If a brother or sister did not feel 



Conclusion 207 

a positive interflowing of sympathy and affection 
with some particular person, some hidden sin was 
the cause, which must be sought out, detected, con- 
fessed, and brought to judgment before they could 
commune together at the Lord's table.' ' The result 
was that, to the detriment of the church, the most 
trivial things were made occasions of complaint and 
discipline. No other cause more rapidly hastened 
the decay and disintegration of the Separate 
churches. As an example, take the complaint of 
Joseph Markham against the church in Enfield. 
The charge, as appears in the finding of Solomon 
Paine of Canterbury, and Thomas Stevens of 
Plainfield, to whom the case was referred, was that, 
"Beni Simons servant to me the Subscriber has left 
the servis of me his S d master to the Damig of my 
outward Estate and to the wounding of the cause 
of Christ, and this Church of Christ at Enfield has 
Countenanced the S d benjamin in the leving of my 
S d servis and fellowshiping with him in leving my 
sturidship hereby I shew my dislike and Requier the 
S d Church to make gospel Satisfaction for their 
So doing." It was further complained that, while 
Markham was in prison, the said Benjamin married 
contrary to Markham's advice, which, it was 
claimed, the church encouraged him to do, to the 
great detriment of the said Markham. This is given 
as an example of the trivial cases of discipline which 
were constantly rending these churches, weakening 
their power, and hastening their final disintegration. 



208 The Separates 

Manifestly their "Key of Knowledge" was as little 
successful in securing the pure church of their 
dreams, as the loose practices of the standing 
churches, against which they protested. 

There may have been other elements of weakness 
in the movement, but these were the principal ones, 
which were sure, soon or late, to bring it to grief. 
There was another reason for the final disappear- 
ance of these churches, which was not inherent in 
them. The loose practices, against which the Sepa- 
rates protested, finally disappeared, state control 
came to an end, and the religious liberty for which 
they contended was restored. The powerful preach- 
ing of Edwards, and the bold stand which he took 
against admitting to church membership any but 
regenerate persons, while it cost him his pastorate 
at Northampton, yet dealt a blow to the Half- Way 
Covenant and its practice, from which it never re- 
covered. While it continued through the last half 
of the eighteenth century, it did so with a con- 
stantly diminishing hold upon the churches. The 
revivals with which that century closed, and the 
nineteenth century opened, finished the work, and 
the regular churches came back into the ways for 
which the Separates contended, both in discipline 
and in methods of support — the original Congrega- 
tional ways of the Separatists of Scrooby. There 
was, therefore, no further reason for their separate 
organization. The end which they had in view was 
gained. It can hardly be said that the Separate 



Conclusion 209 

movement contributed very largely to the change 
in practice and discipline which finally took place in 
the regular churches. There was in it too little of 
real strength, and too much of structural weakness. 
Nevertheless, there is good reason for the words of 
the pastor of the South Congregational Church in 
Middletown, Conn. : "The Congregational church 
of to-day is stronger and better able to do its work, 
and has more faith in its own polity, unmixed with 
any stronger form of government because of the 
lesson which she so unwillingly learned from the 
Separatists/' 

Rev. Robert C. Learned, in The New Englander 
for 1853, calls this movement a "sad mistake." 
From some points of view it was. But the same 
spirit which led the men of Scrooby to leave the 
Established Church of England in the early part of 
the seventeenth century, led the Separates of New 
England to leave the churches of the "standing 
order," in the middle of the eighteenth century. 
The mistake of the latter was the mistake of the 
former, which we must forever be glad that they 
made. 

The Separates of New England were for the 
most part sincere, honest, pious men and women. 
This was shown in their life and death. In many 
things their views were more correct than those of 
their opponents. The chief charge against them 
was their separation. Edwards, and those who 
agreed with him among the clergy, advised the 



2 1 o The Separates 

course of the old Puritans, who sought to reform 
the Church of England from within. The Sepa- 
rates took issue here, followed the men of Scrooby, 
and came out. Puritanism, with its parish, led 
straight back to the evils to be corrected. We in- 
cline to think that they took the only course open to 
them. 

It was a decisive step, we think, in the right 
direction, and was not wholly without results. It is 
to be regretted, however, that a movement in which 
there were so great possibilities was defeated in 
large measure because those engaged in it, while 
honest and sincere, allowed themselves to be carried 
to such unreasonable extremes. There was abun- 
dant occasion for such a movement. The principles 
of liberty, expressed in the simple polity of Congre- 
gationalism, and that polity itself, were threatened 
by the oppressive and Presbyterianizing measures 
of the older and established churches of Connecti- 
cut, under the Saybrook Platform. Tracy very truly 
says, "From a candid consideration of the whole 
subject ... it appears . . . that the pre- 
valence of Separatism, and its concomitant errors 
and evils, was far less extensive than it has usually 
been represented; that the amount of evil fairly 
chargeable to this source in the whole country, has 
been greatly overestimated, while the good which it 
aided to accomplish, has not been acknowledged. " 
So then the Separate movement served its purpose, 
had its influence, gave in its testimony for a pure 



Conclusion 211 

church, helped to save primitive Congregationalism, 
contributed considerably to the building up of the 
churches of the Baptist order, and made an inter- 
esting and instructive chapter in the ecclesiastical 
history of New England. 



SEF 29 1902 

1 COPY DEL TO CM HIV. 
SEP, 29 1902 

I 1902 



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